London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown held his first-ever meeting with Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi at the G8 summit in L'Aquila Friday, the government in London said.

A spokesman also confirmed that Gaddafi, the current president of the African Union (AU), exchanged his first handshake with US President Barack Obama at an official dinner hosted by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Thursday.

Libya has only in recent years been able to shake off the pariah status that resulted from the maverick policies of its veteran leader and his troubled relations with the US in the late 1980s and 1990s.

"Throughout the conversation, there was agreement that the relationship between the UK and Libya was a strong relationship and had grown significantly since 2003 and that it would grow stronger still in the years to come," a spokesman for Brown in London said about Friday's meeting.

However, the Guardian reported that the Libyan leader had demanded the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the former Libyan agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, who is serving a life term in a Scottish jail.

Brown had rejected the demand, saying the case was a matter for the Scottish courts. Al-Megrahi, who has advanced prostate cancer, has launched an appeal against his sentence. But his lawyers say their client could die before a decision is taken later this year.

He was convicted of the bombing of a PanAm plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988, in which 270 people died.

Reports in London said Brown had also urged Gaddafi to use his influence on states such as Iran and North Korea to "follow Libya's example" and give up "weapons of mass destruction."

In their 40-minute discussion, the two leaders also talked about the current volatility in oil prices and agreed on the need to maintain a close dialogue between the major oil-consuming countries and producers, as well as the need for greater transparency in the oil markets.

The government said Brown and Gaddafi had a long discussion on Africa and their "strongly shared view" that the continent needed better representation in international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Brown underlined that Africa was not responsible for the current global recession and should be protected from its consequences. He offered British help in developing Libya's healthcare system, which was accepted.(dpa)