Kim Syng-ho

A National Intelligence Service agent assigned to the Korean Embassy in Libya was deported last month on espionage charges, and the three officials from the Libyan economic cooperation bureau in Seoul, which is the de facto embassy, were abruptly recalled in late June, which puts an end to visa issuance. What caused all that trouble?

Back in 1978, Daewoo Engineering and Construction signed up for a project with Garyounis University, even before Korea established diplomatic relations with Libya. In 1991, Libya emerged as Korea's fourth largest overseas construction market when Donga Construction undertook a Libyan canal project. The project, Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's ambitious scheme to convert deserts into fertile land and supply farm produce to neighboring countries, is still underway.

Taking power in a 1969 coup, Qaddafi has ruled the country for 41 years. Unlike in the Western press, he enjoys some regard on the African continent on account of his leadership in forming the Africa Union. But the West and Libya have traditionally been hostile to each other. In a bid to improve relations with the United States, Libya abandoned its nuclear development program in December 2003, but Qaddafi's anti-U.S. sentiments remain unchanged. If an alleged nuclear weapons deal with North Korea is verified, Washington may sanction Tripoli.

Libya has often complained that Seoul sides with the West. Over two decades ago, Korea requested an agreement for the appointment of a former military attaché at the embassy in Washington as ambassador to Libya. The assent, normally delivered in two months, took much longer, according to rumor because the attaché had worked in America.

When I was ambassador in Tripoli in 1991, senior Libyan Foreign Ministry officials often complained that Korea did not help Libya become a member in an international agency, whereas Tripoli supported Seoul's admission as a non-standing member of the UN Security Council. Now Libya feels that Korea is disparaging Qaddafi even as it reaps substantial profits from Libya. It is an extension of these complaints that Libyan authorities now claim that the NIS agent was spying on Qaddafi and passed on the information to the United States and Israel.

When the matter deteriorated, Seoul dispatched lawmaker Lee Sang-deuk to Tripoli as a presidential envoy to meet with Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmudi three times. The fact that the presidential envoy met the prime minister, though he failed to meet the Libyan leader, seems to indicate that Tripoli won't drive the matter to the brink.

South Korean construction companies last year won project orders worth US$3.1 billion in Libya. This year they are engaged in 51 projects worth W11 trillion (US$1=W1,186). To clear up the misunderstandings, Seoul will have to make more sincere efforts, as Mahmudi told Lee. The government needs to demonstrate its good faith by sending the new prime minister or the foreign minister to Tripoli once the cabinet is reshuffled. Otherwise, Korea may lose one of its major overseas markets.

By Kim Syng-ho, former Korean ambassador to Libya