Cameron in NYC to meet with business leaders after rebuffing calls for Lockerbie inquiry
By APWednesday, July 21, 2010
Cameron arrives in NYC for UN, business meetings
NEW YORK — British Prime Minister David Cameron grabbed a quick hot dog lunch with Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday as he arrived in New York for his first official visit, but he remained silent ahead of planned meetings with business leaders and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Cameron, who took office 10 weeks ago, arrived in New York by train after a visit to Washington, where he met with President Barack Obama and Pentagon officials.
Bloomberg met Cameron on a street corner outside the station, and the pair grabbed lunch from a street vendor but ignored questions from reporters while they ate. Cameron did flash a thumbs-up when asked about his lunch.
Cameron was scheduled to meet later in New York with U.S. business leaders about trade and investment prospects and was to hold talks with Ban. He and Bloomberg planned to wrap up the day with another meal together — a more refined private dinner on the Upper East Side.
Cameron had hoped his first U.S. visit as prime minister would focus on trade and troop involvement in Afghanistan, but it has been overshadowed by questions of whether oil giant BP swayed Scotland’s decision to release the Lockerbie bomber.
Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, most of them American and many from the New York area.
Last year the Scottish government released the cancer-stricken al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
The matter has received new attention because of accusations that BP helped influence the release of al-Megrahi as part of efforts to seek access to Libyan oil fields.
BP has acknowledged that it urged the British government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya but says it never specified al-Megrahi’s case.
The four U.S. senators from New York and New Jersey met with Cameron on Tuesday to press for a new investigation.
In a solo appearance Wednesday, Bloomberg said that while al-Megrahi’s release was a “miscarriage of justice,” he said he had no plans to press the case further with Cameron.
“That’s a federal issue and there’s no reason why I would bring it up,” he said.
