Tripoli - Tight security has been imposed for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's meeting with Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi scheduled for later Friday. Details of Rice's stay have been kept vague as a precaution against a possible terrorist attack, the newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat said.
Libyan government sources said the secretary of state was due to arrive early evening and meet Gaddafi in a tent, probably in the capital Tripoli.
She has also been invited to visit the house where the Libyan leader's adopted daughter died in a US air raid on Tripoli in 1986.
The sources said Rice would land at a military airport outside the capital on the first leg of a four-nation tour of North Africa.
She would not be spending the night in Libya, the sources said.
The landmark visit is seen as the opening of a new era after more than half a century of strained US-Libyan relations.
The last US secretary of state to visit Libya was John Foster Dulles in 1953.
During her stay, Rice is expected to discuss with Gaddafi and other high-ranking officials ways to activate trade and investments, especially in the energy sector.
Icy relations between the US and Libya began to thaw in 2003 after Libya abandoned its programme to produce weapons of mass destruction. Later, the US removed Libya from a list of countries that support terrorism, allowing for the exchange diplomatic envoys in 2006.
The US hopes that Libya's changed behaviour will influence other countries, according to Jim Phillips, a Middle East analyst at The Heritage Foundation.
"Some within the US administration hope that this sends a positive signal to Iran and North Korea that they can improve relations with the US and other countries by following Libya's example," Phillips told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"The US administration seeks to show
