Seif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Moamer Gadhafi (AFP)

PARIS, January 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In another step that is bound to bring Libya closer to crowning its effort to assume better relations with the West, Tripoli Friday, January 9, signed a deal with the families of the victims of French UTA airliner that crashed in 1989 over Niger.

The deal was signed by Abdu Salam, director of the Gadhafi Foundation, a charity that negotiated for Tripoli, 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 des Depots et Consignations, a state-owned financial agency.

Seventeen people representing the families of 11 French and African victims of the bombing attended the signing, which took place in a Parisian law office.

Under the deal – to be signed Friday in Paris between the families and a Libyan delegation - Libya will pay one million dollars in four installments to the families of each of the 170 people killed in the bombing of the French airliner over west Africa, according to a spokesman for the families, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A total of 42.5 million dollars (33.4 million euros) will be paid Friday, with three payments to follow, Saint-Marc said before signing of the compensation deal.

A DC-10 belonging to the French airliner UTA went down over the west African state of Niger in September 1989, killing 170 people, including 54 French nationals.

Relatives of those killed in the UTA bombing - who initially received about 35 million dollars in compensation - have been demanding a pay-out comparable to the 2.7 billion dollars Tripoli paid to the kin of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, also blamed on Libya.

Signing the deal paves the way for the normalization of Franco-Libyan relations.

Earlier Friday, the Libyan delegation arrived at a Parisian law office ahead of the expected signing, which was due to take place before midday, according to Saint-Marc.

"We are happy to have reached an agreement that puts an end to several years of negotiations," Abdu Salam said before entering the law office.

He also said the two sides had agreed to organize a memorial service at the site where a DC-10 belonging to the French airliner UTA went down, as a symbol of reconciliation between France and Libya.

The two sides reached an agreement in principle on September 11 on a financial package and as a result, France withdrew its threat to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution lifting sanctions on Tripoli. But talks had faltered since.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Shalgam was due to meet Friday with French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. The two Foreign Ministers will hold a news conference, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry in Tripoli said that the compensation deal would restore normal relations with Paris.

"With this accord, the affair will be definitively closed," Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassuna al-Shaush told AFP. "Nothing will be able to affect relations between Libya and France anymore."

The French UTA aircraft was carrying 54 French citizens, 48 Congolese, 25 Chadians, 10 Italians, eight Americans, five Cameroonians, four Britons, three Canadians, three people from Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), two people from the Central African Republic, two Malians, two Swiss, one Algerian, one Greek, one Moroccan and one Senegalese national.

Last month, Libya surprised the international community by announcing that it would give up any ambitions it had of acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and would allow U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said earlier this week that he would invite Shalgam to London for talks on WMD decommissioning.