Spain's Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on Saturday that the visa blacklist against 188 Libyans had been torn up and expressed regret as part of a diplomatic drive by European Union leaders.

The foreign ministry in Madrid expressed said it "deplored" the problems that the ban had caused to Libyans.

The ban was imposed on the initiative of Switzerland, which has been embroiled in a long-standing diplomatic row with Libya.

Tripoli responded in kind by putting out a communiqué. "In the interests of strengthening its cooperation with the European Union, Libya lifts the restrictions it earlier imposed on the citizens of the Schengen zone," the Libyan Foreign Ministry said in a statement published by the state news agency JANA, referring to the 25-nation visa-free zone in Europe.

Switzerland is part of the Schengen zone but not a member of the 27-nation EU.

Libya had insisted on the EU apologizing for the row, something that Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos had agreed to during a recent visit to Tripoli, according to the Libyan ambassador to Spain.

Last week, Switzerland said that it was prepared to lift the ban it had imposed in January on Libyan officials, including leader Moamer Gaddafi, for entry into the Schengen zone.

Strife escalates

The spat between Libya and Switzerland dates back to 2008, when Gaddafi's son, Hannibal, was arrested in Geneva, allegedly for mistreating his domestic help. The charges were later dropped but Tripoli retaliated by arresting two Swiss men on visa charges.

The crisis assumed an EU-wide dimension earlier this year, with the Swiss travel ban and a tit-for-tat prohibition by Libya, which said it would stop issuing visas to citizens from all Schengen-area countries.

The Swiss move not only infuriated Libya, but also Schengen states which saw it as an unjustified escalation of a bilateral row.

The Schengen area is a grouping of all EU countries except Britain, Ireland, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania, plus non-EU members Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

The diplomatic feud between Switzerland and Libya also escalated following a Swiss referendum decision in November last year to ban the construction of minarets in the country. In February, Gaddafi had condemned the minaret ban and called for a "jihad" or holy war against Switzerland.

rb/AFP/Reuters/AP
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar