Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tripoli today on the first trip by a US secretary of state to Libya since 1953.
Ms Rice was set to meet Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadafy during her brief trip, which Washington hopes will end decades of enmity and violence and comes five years after Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003.
"This demonstrates that the US doesn't have permanent enemies," Ms Rice told reporters travelling with her to Tripoli.
"It demonstrates that when countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction, the United States is prepared to respond. Quite frankly I never thought I would be visiting Libya, and so it it is quite something," she said.
"This trip is acknowledging how far the US-Libyan relationship has come, but it is the beginning and not the end of the story."
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was the last top US diplomat to visit Tripoli and made the trip in May 1953 - before Ms Rice was born.
Reuters