The director of the Libyan Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations Saleh Abdul Salam, center left, shakes hands with the representative for families of victims of the 1989 French passenger jet bombing after signing the compensation accord Jan. 9. (Xinhua Photo)

    PARIS, Jan. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Libya and the families of the victims of the 1989 bombing of a French airliner on Friday signed a 170-million-US-dollar compensation deal.

The director of the Libyan Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations Saleh Abdul Salam signs the compensation accord with the representative for families of victims of the 1989 French passenger jet bombing Jan. 9. (Xinhua Photo)

    The deal was signed by Abdu Salam, director of the Kadhafi Foundation, Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, a spokesman for some of the families, Francis Szpiner, attorney for the French victims' rights group SOS Attentats, and a representative of the Caisse desDepots et Consignations, a state-owned financial agency.

    A total of 42.5 million dollars were paid in cheque at the signing ceremony held at the office of a lawyer in Paris. Three payments will follow, with each of the victims families receiving 1 million dollars in the end.

    Seventeen people representing 11 victims families were also present. Of those killed aboard the DC-10 of the French airline UTA, which crashed over the west African state of Niger in September 1989, 102 were Africans and 54 were French.

    The Paris-Tripoli talks over the compensation for the DC-10 victims faltered in past months, casting a shadow on the normalization of French-Libyan relations.

    Relatives of the victims insisted on a pay-out comparable to the 2.7 billion dollars Tripoli paid to the relatives of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

    An agreement in principle was signed on Sept. 11 on a financial package. As a result France lifted its threat to veto a UN resolution removing sanctions on Libya.

    But since then, Libya has been reluctant to come up with the compensation and representatives of the Kadhafi Foundation -- a body run by Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, which is handling the negotiations -- claimed the French side was reneging on its part of the September agreement.

    On Thursday, President of the French Senate, Christian Poncelet, and visiting Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Rahman Mohammad Shalgam jointly announced that a deal has been reached. They said the progress will contribute to the development of bilateral ties. ADC-10 belonging to the French airline UTA went down over the west African state of Niger in September 1989, killing 170 people, including 54 French nationals. Enditem