TRIPOLI, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Libya and the United States signed a comprehensive deal on Thursday to compensate all US and Libyan victims of bombings or their relatives, Libyan officials said.

The US victims include those who died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people and the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco that killed three people and wounded 229.

Libyans who were killed in 1986 when US warplanes bombed Tripoli and Benghazi are also covered by the payout, Libyan officials added.

Libya said at least 40 people were killed, including Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's adopted daughter, in the US strikes.

"This international agreement between the two sides ends any pending issue between Tripoli and Washington. It clears the way for normal and complete relations between Libya and the USA," Azzam Eddine, a member of the Libyan team who negotiated the deal, told Reuters.

The agreement would end the legal liability to Libya stemming from multiple lawsuits by families of the US victims and it would allow a further warming in ties between Tripoli and Washington, the Libyan officials said.

US President George W Bush on Monday signed into law legislation that paved the way for Libya to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate US victims of the bombing attacks that Washington blames on Tripoli.

Relations between the United States and Libya, a major oil producer, have improved dramatically since Tripoli gave up weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

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