Libya is committed to building cooperative relations with the United States based on mutual respect and equality, a senior Libyan official said Thursday.

"We seek a peaceful relation with the United States, a cooperative relation, an equal relation," Ahmed Ibrahim, assistant secretary general for media affairs of Libya's People's Conference, told reporters.

However, he described US military actions in Iraq as barbaric and compared the killings of innocent Iraqis to the Holocaust.

"The United States should learn their lesson in Iraq," he said, adding the US invasion of Iraq was a result of "US ignorance of international law."

The United States used to enjoy close relations with Libya before Muammar Ghaddafi came to power in a 1969 military coup.

After declaring Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism", Washington broke diplomatic ties with Tripoli in 1980.

However, relations improved dramatically after Libya decided in December 2003 to stop seeking weapons of mass destruction and accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar wrapped up a two-day official visit to Libya on Aug. 20, during which Ghaddafi was said to have extended an invitation to US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to visit Tripoli.

Source: Xinhua