Spain's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday it regretted that some Libyans had been blacklisted for travel to Europe's Schengen borderless zone and said the blacklist had now been scrapped, according to Reuters. Libya stopped issuing visas to citizens from Schengen zone countries in retaliation for Switzerland, a Schengen member, barring entry to senior Libyans including the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi and members of his family. The visa row has unsettled European countries with substantial business ties to oil exporter Libya, especially its near-neighbours Italy and Malta. "All the names of the Libyan citizens included in the list of the Schengen information system have been removed," the ministry said in a statement. "We regret and deplore the trouble and inconvenience caused to those Libyan citizens. We hope that this move will not be repeated in the future." Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency, had talks on Saturday in the Libyan city of Sirte, where Gaddafi is hosting a summit of the Arab League. Switzerland has been locked in a diplomatic row with oil exporter Libya since July 2008, when police in Geneva arrested Hannibal Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader, on charges of mistreating two domestic employees. The charges were swiftly dropped and Hannibal Gaddafi was released, but Libya stopped oil exports to Switzerland and withdrew millions of dollars from Swiss banks. The Schengen area is a borderless travel zone grouping 22 EU nations plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
