Swiss, Libyan foreign ministers to hold talks on travel ban row

(GENEVA) - The Swiss and Libyan foreign ministers will meet in Madrid Thursday to try to resolve a row over Bern's travel ban on 186 Libyans, including Moamer Kadhafi, Switzerland's foreign ministry said.

Micheline Calmy-Rey and Libya's Moussa Koussa will meet in presence of their Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos, whose country holds the European Union preidency, a ministry spokesman said late Wednesday.

Spain confirmed the meeting but did not specify a time.

Libya has been embroiled in a diplomatic row with Switzerland since July 2008 after the brief arrest in Geneva of Kadhafi's son Hannibal when two hotel workers complained he had mistreated them.

The dispute escalated when Libya detained two Swiss businessmen.

Switzerland hit back banning 186 Libyans, including Kadhafi and the foreign minister, from entering Swiss territory.

Last year, 270 visa applications from Libyans seeking to enter Europe's 25-state Schengen free-travel zone were rejected at Switzerland's request, out of a total of 30,000 requests, the Swiss migration office said Wednesday.

Libya recently retaliated by announcing it was planning to deny entry visas to European citizens.

The European Union stepped in this week in a bid to stop the diplomatic row from dragging in Switzerland's European neighbours.

Thursday's meeting was set up by the Spanish EU presidency "in coordination with the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, with a view to possibly resolving the situation," a Spanish diplomatic source said.

The meeting announcement came after Libya's former colonial ruler Italy asked Switzerland to relax its travel ban, while urging Tripoli to free the two Swiss nationals in its custody.

Frattini said he understood how Libyans could have been "deeply hurt" by their leader's inclusion on a Swiss blacklist that was set up to "prevent the entrance of terrorists and criminals in the Schengen zone."

Malta and Italy ask "once more of Switzerland to accelerate negotiations with Libya" and to eliminate the blacklist, they said in a joint statement.

Frattini also urged Libya to adopt "pragmatic flexibility" and not to make members of the Schengen zone "pay the price over a bilateral dispute."

The Swiss-Libyan row was also to be raised on Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, which Frattini said was the "appropriate political setting."