Libya demanded the complete normalisation of diplomatic relations with the European Union today as part of a deal for the release of six Bulgarian medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus, diplomatic sources said today.

The last-minute demand was made in overnight talks between Libyan officials and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's External Relations Commissioner who arrived in Tripoli last night hoping to secure an end to the medics' eight-year ordeal.

One source said that the Libyan Foreign Ministry had demanded the “complete standardisation of Libya’s relations with the countries of the European Union at all levels”.

Ms Ferrero-Waldner was accompanied to Tripoli by France's First Lady, Cécilia Sarkzoy, who is making her second trip to Libya this month.

Press reports have suggested that Mrs Sarkozy is hoping to take the medics - five nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who also has Bulgarian nationality - on a French plane to Sofia.

But her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, refused to comment today on reports that he might join her in Libya to drive the negotiations forward, although he said of the talks: "What I know is that it’s very tough."

On her first visit to Libya, on July 12th, Mrs Sarkozy had a 90-minute meeting with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi before meeting the nurses, who have been imprisoned since 1999. Today she met Aicha Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's 28-year-old daughter.

The six medics were convicted in May 2004 of deliberately infecting 438 children with HIV-tainted blood at a hospital in the Mediterranean city of Benghazi - although they now say that their confessions were made under duress. The highest judicial body in Libya last week commuted their death sentences to life terms in prison.

Libya’s latest demands come after a compensation package was hammered out giving the families of each HIV victim about $1 million, according to the Gaddafi Foundation. Sofia is seeking the extradition of the six under a prisoner exchange agreement it signed with Tripoli in 1984, and the expectation had been that the agreement would witness their rapid transfer to Bulgaria.

Relations between the EU and Libya have warmed considerably since 2003, when Tripoli decided to renounce ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and moved to settle issues concerning the Lockerbie affair. UN sanctions against Libya were lifted in September 2003, but Tripoli remains excluded from economic benefits extended by the EU to neighbouring states.

David Charter, Europe Correspondent of The Times, said from Brussels that any demands made by Libya would be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers later today.

"It all seems to be part of a carefully choreographed series of events following the lifting of the death penalty last week - although with Libya you can never be sure how long it will all take," Charter said.

Mrs Sarkozy's part is less clear. "She is simply the spouse of an important EU leader who, we are told, has travelled to the EU with the full approval of the EU, although she appears to be freelancing," Charter added. "If she can bring them back, however, it would be an extraordinary ending to what has already been an extraordinary story."

In Paris a statement issued by the president’s office said that Mr Sarkozy spoke several times with Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, by telephone over the weekend in a bid to have the six freed and “repatriated immediately". Mr Sarkozy promised to work to free the medics during his campaign for the presidency earlier this year.

A European diplomatic source said that the French President had promised to help modernise the Benghazi hospital where the nurses and the doctor worked in exchange for their repatriation to Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian Foreign Minister, Ivailo Kalfin, said today that he was hopeful that the mission to Libya would yield a deal.

“We are at the stage now where the decision is clearly political,” Mr Kalfin said as he arrived in Brussels for the ministerial meeting. “I hope there will be good enough will from the Libyan side today.”

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