Officials said Tripoli and Washington have been negotiating a science
and technology framework cooperation agreement. They said the accord could
pave the way for Libyan purchases of U.S.-origin dual-use systems.
"I am happy that [U.S.-Libyan] relations have moved, maybe not very
fast, but steadily," Ali Suleiman Aujali, charge d'affairs at the Libyan
embassy in Washington, told a reception. "Technical cooperation is very
important."
In 2006, Libya and the United States launched space cooperation. The
National Aeronautics Space Administration, or NASA, sent a delegation to
Tripoli to discuss space science and astronomy.
"Libya is a small country," Aujali said. "Infrastructure is important;
education is important; communication is important. American people,
American companies, American media also -- they can play a very important
role."
Michael Foose, a regional specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey,
said Libya could receive U.S. assistance in satellite remote-sensing for
civilian applications. Foose, who covers Africa and the Middle East, cited
"remote sensing as applied to monitoring land use and land change."
"We have the capacity to work with them to develop tools to monitor
their coastal environment," Foose said.
Officials said the Libyan Center for Remote Sensing and Space Science
and the U.S. Geological Survey plan to upgrade a Libyan seismic station. The
Libyan station would be included in the U.S. Global Seismographic Network,
or GSN.
"The GSN would benefit from having a station in Northern Africa,"
William Leith, who works with GSN, said. "And Libya is almost perfectly
situated in terms of its geographic location to improve the network's
coverage."