Local media reported Sunday that Libya stopped issuing visas to Canadian citizens as tensions rose between the two countries. The move follows Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s cancellation of a recent stopover in Canada in September. Kadhafi was returning from summits in the United States and Venezuela.
Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon was instructed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to communicate Canada’s displeasure over Lybia’s welcome home celebration for Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. He is the convicted Lockerbie bomber who was released from a prison in Scotland on compassionate grounds – he has terminal cancer. Countries who lost citizens in the 1988 attack were extremely critical of the joyful celebrations welcoming him home to Libya.