Downing Street denies Obama snub

Sep 24 2009

Downing Street has denied US President Barack Obama had snubbed Gordon Brown on five different occasions during the Prime Minister's visit to New York.

Number 10 insisted claims that requests for one-to-one talks had been rebuffed were "completely without foundations" adding that the two leaders had already had one wide-ranging discussion and would be meeting again.

But reports suggested the White House had refused requests for official talks with Mr Brown even though Mr Obama had met the Chinese and Indian leaders in private.

Gordon Brown is set to face Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for the first time since the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish jail - the issue which has been cited as a possible cause of tense between the US and Britain. The two men are due to attend the United Nations Security Council in New York amid continuing international tensions over the way Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was freed last month.

Earlier, the Prime Minister defended the Government's actions on US television, insisting Megrahi's release had been a matter for the Scottish authorities and that there had been no deal involving Libya's vast oil reserves. The families of the American victims, however, remain deeply angry at the way Megrahi has been allowed to return home to die and the decision has been strongly condemned by the administration.

Mr Brown now faces the unwelcome prospect that the Libyan leader will try to use the meeting of the Security Council to embarrass him further - possibly by trying to engineer a public handshake. It is the only time that they are scheduled to be in the same room together while they are at the UN, and Mr Brown has made clear that if approached, he will express his anger at the jubilant reception which greeted Megrahi on his return to Libya.

Earlier the unpredictable Col Gaddafi upstaged the other leaders attending the General Assembly with a 1 hour 36 minute tirade denouncing the way the world body operated. The Prime Minister later re-wrote part of his speech to issue a ringing defence of the UN's principles in the face of the Colonel's outspoken attack.