08:53 a.m. Jul 26, 1998 Eastern
TUNIS, July 26 (Reuters) - Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki has flown to Tripoli and held talks with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan state-run radio reported on Sunday.
The radio, monitored in neighbouring Tunisia, said Afewerki had arrived on Saturday at Tripoli airport. It did not explicitly say whether he had violated a 1992 U.N. Security Council embargo that bans flights to and from Libya.
It said Afewerki and Gaddafi had embraced when they met.
``I came today to be reassured about the leader's health and to talk on bilateral ties and positive initiatives aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the dispute with Ethiopia,'' Afewerki was quoted as saying on his arrival.
Gaddafi is recovering from an operation on a hip he broke while exercising this month.
Libya is subject to U.N. sanctions for failing to hand over to the United States or Britain two Libyans wanted in connection with the 1988 bombing of a PanAm airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people were killed.
Last month an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Burkina Faso called on member states to ignore sanctions which had humanitarian or religious implications or related to official OAU business.
Several African leaders, including Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore who holds the OAU's rotating presidency, flew to Libya earlier this month despite the air embargo.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had received permission to fly to Libya on July 9 under a U.N. Security Council committee ``no objection'' procedure.
Libya has been mediating between Ethiopia and Eritrea in their territorial conflict. It has offered to man a buffer force with other Saharan states in disputed areas after a ceasefire.
``This proposal was a practical one compared to other initiatives and we see that this initiative must go on and that efforts must be deployed in that direction,'' the radio quoted Afewerki as saying.