Libyan Leader Begins State Visit to Algeria

Libyan leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the council that overthrew Moammar Gadhafi, arrived in Algeria Sunday for a state visit that comes amid a period of strained relations.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and an entourage of senior government officials and foreign diplomats met Abdeljalil at the airport when he arrived around 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), an Agence France Presse photographer said.

The two-day visit "offers an opportunity to confer on the latest developments in the region in light of recent events", Bouteflika's office said in a statement.

Abdel Jalil's trip, planned several months in advance, "will allow the two parties to go ahead with an exchange of views on different questions of mutual interest, both Arab and international", the statement added.

The two leaders met twice in November on visits to Qatar to meet with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, in Doha.

Algeria was initially luke-warm toward the revolution in its eastern neighbor, and Libya still wants Bouteflika's government to hand over several members of the Gadhafi family who are in exile there.

After the anti-Gadhafi rebellion broke out last year, Algeria criticized NATO's military support for the rebels, and kept quiet on the African Union's calls for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.

Algeria finally recognized the National Transitional Council (NTC) on September 22, following the African Union's lead.

Tripoli also wants Algiers to hand over several of Gadhafi’s family members to stand trial, including his daughter Aisha, his brothers Mohammed and Hannibal, and his mother Safiya, all of whom fled to Algeria in late August.

But relations between the two countries have been slowly improving.

In March, their interior ministries signed an agreement in Algiers to implement joint border patrols and share regional security information.

Bouteflika had also reaffirmed his interest in closer ties in a message to the NTC leader in December, on Algeria's Independence Day.

The Libyan conflict has led to arms trafficking across the porous 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) border with Algeria.

Abdel Jalil's visit came as campaigning began in Algeria for elections next month seen as a test of reforms designed to avert the kind of discontent that led to a string of revolutions elsewhere in the region.

Deadly riots in the north African country in January 2011 coincided with an uprising in neighboring Tunisia that sparked the so-called Arab Spring which also ousted the rulers of Egypt, Libya and Yemen.