The British government denied yesterday that it was dragging its feet on a new initiative for a trial in The Hague for two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing.
The Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, told the Commons that he had started discussions with the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, some months ago on new proposals for a trial.
Mr Blair had also recently approached the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Wim Kok, with the proposal. In The Hague the foreign ministry described the talks as "preliminary".
"As a result of no progress being made . . . we are prepared to look at alternative ways of giving the families the justice they deserve," Mr Blair told parliament. "That is why we launched discussions with the US and the Dutch, more recently, about the possibility of a trial in a third country."
Earlier this week the US appeared to be moving quickly to promote the new proposal for a trial under Scottish law, to be held at the neutral venue in the Netherlands.
The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, on Tuesday held a meeting with victims' relatives and proposed a neutral venue for the trial.
Britain was more cautious. Officials said the government was exploring new options, but the junior Foreign Office Minister, Mr Tony Lloyd, told parliament that the government still wanted a trial in Scotland or the US and many legal and technical complexities stood in the way of a third venue.
Mr Blair reiterated that a third venue was fraught with technical difficulties.
"There are many legal and other complexities to be overcome before we can be sure that this is the right way to proceed, and until those issues are resolved no final decision can be made," he said.
Earlier Mr Blair's chief spokesman denied the US was moving faster, saying US actions were necessarily different from Britain's because of the different attitudes of the victims' relatives in the two countries.
"It is very complex also in terms of the families. The response of families here has shown it [a neutral venue] is less of a concern," he said. Mr Jim Swire, a spokesman for the families, and a number of other victims' relatives had been in the forefront of pressing for just such a compromise, the spokesman said.
Foreign Office officials told Reuters there had been contact with Mr Swire as recently as yesterday morning.
A total of 270 people were killed when a bomb ripped apart Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. The US and British governments have always insisted that Libya hand over the suspects for trial in either Scotland or the US, as stipulated in UN Security Council resolutions in 1992.
But the Guardian newspaper said on Tuesday that the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, and Ms Albright would announce a reversal of that position simultaneously in the next few days.
The Guardian said the US and Britain felt the need to regain the initiative because opposition to sanctions on Libya - imposed for the country's failure to extradite the two suspects - had grown in the Arab world, Africa and further afield.
Mr Blair said it had long been a priority of his government to take measures to bring the accused Libyans to trial.