Italy will invest $5 billion in Libya over the next 25 years in a deal to be signed on Saturday, turning the page on colonial-era disputes that have long tarnished their relations. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made the announcement during a visit to the Mediterranean city of Benghazi for a meeting with Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi to seal a cooperation accord with the oil-rich north African nation. “The accord will provide for $200 million a year over the next 25 years through investments in infrastructure projects in Libya,” Berlusconi said in remarks translated into Arabic. “This agreement should put an end to 40 years of discord. It is a concrete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era,” he told reporters. Italy and Libya, which gained independence in 1951, have spend years negotiating a wide-ranging treaty to cover compensation for Rome's military occupation and colonisation which dates back to the last century. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to follow in Berlusconi's footsteps next week, for the first visit by such a high-ranking US official to Libya since 1953. Berlusconi, who is on his second trip to Libya since June, said among the major projects to be financed by Italy will be a motorway running along the coast from the Tunisian border to Egypt. It will also fund house construction, bourses for Libyan students to study in Italy, pensions for those mutilated by landmines laid by Italy during its rule. The agreement will also cover cooperation on the fight against illegal immigration, which Berlusconi termed a battle “against slave traders.” Funding for the road - previously estimated to cost three billion euros ($4.65 billion) was promised by Berlusconi on a visit to Tripoli in 2004, when he headed a previous administration. When the two leaders met in June, Berlusconi was pushing for the rapid implementation of a December 2007 accord on joint maritime patrols to curtail the flow of thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa to Europe. Formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire, Libya was occupied by Italy in 1911 before becoming a colony in the 1930s. The country gained its independence in 1951 after a brief period under a UN-mandated Franco-British administration. Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said that visiting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is set to sign a memorandum pledging a $5 billion compensation package involving construction projects, student grants, and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during the Second World War.
