American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that her historic visit to former pariah state Libya proves that the US never writes off another nation forever.

Ms Rice is the highest-ranking American official to visit the North African country in more than half a century. She will have dinner with mercurial leader Muammar Gaddafi, whom former US President Ronald Reagan once called a "mad dog" and other US leaders have called a terrorist.

"There is a long way to go, but I do believe that this demonstrates that the United States doesn't have permanent enemies," Ms Rice said as she flew to the capital. She said she had not expected she would ever go to Libya.

Ms Rice was welcomed with a modest ceremony at the airport and was meeting with Libya's Foreign Minister before the highlight of the brief visit - dinner with Mr Gaddafi. He invited her for the evening meal that breaks the day's fast observed during the holy month of Ramadan, and although details were sketchy ahead of time, US officials said they expected Ms Rice would dine in a traditional, desert-style tent.

"I look forward to hearing the leader's world view," Ms Rice told reporters.

Mr Gaddafi is expected to be surrounded by an all-female bodyguard corps.

Ms Rice is the first US Secretary of State to visit Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953 and the highest-ranking American official to visit since then vice-president Richard Nixon in 1957.

Mr Gaddafi has sought the visit to culminate five years of halting but steadily improving ties that began when Libya abandoned weapons of mass destruction and renounced terrorism in 2003. Libya has since agreed to pay compensation to the families of victims of the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie and those of a 1986 attack on a disco in Berlin, which prompted President Reagan to order air strikes on Libya. The money is not yet all there, but US officials say they are confident it will be paid soon.

"It demonstrates that when countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction the United States is prepared to respond," Ms Rice said. "It's a beginning, it's an opening. It's not, I think, the end of the story."

Ms Rice was spending only a few hours in Tripoli, an ancient city fronting the Mediterranean sea and backing to the North African desert. There were few signs in the capital that Libyans or their government saw the day as particularly significant. No banners along her route and no crowds lined up to gawk.

"No-one can ever salve the wounds of the families" victimised by terror attacks, Ms Rice said. "That is why we have looked so hard for justice to be brought and a means of compensation."

Some of the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have raised vehement objections to Ms Rice meeting with Mr Gaddafi, whom they consider to be unrepentant for the deaths of the 280 people, including 180 Americans.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television last year, Mr Gaddafi spoke of Ms Rice in most unusual terms, calling her "Leezza" and suggesting that she actually runs the Arab world with which he has had severe differences in the past.

"I support my darling black African woman," he said. "I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders Leezza, Leezza, Leezza I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin."