Libya has constantly made the headlines in the recent months: The speech of Libya’s leader, who has been in power for 40 years, at the United Nations General Assembly last week provoked much controversy; The release of a Libyan convicted in a 1988 plane bombing has roused much anger in both sides of the Atlantic in late August.

In light of these events, Gene Cretz, Ambassador of the United States to Libya, emphasized that continued engagement with Libya is still in line with America’s goals in a speech at Cornell last night.

“We can never forgive and we can never forget the terrorism perpetrated against our citizens. At the same time we need to realize that there is [goodwill] in Libya toward Americans,” Cretz said.

With this growing goodwill, Cretz said that America’s relationship with Libya represents “the textbook case of successful diplomacy carried out over a number of administrations.” The ambassador, however, also acknowledged that there is much room for improvement in U.S.-Libyan relations.

Let's be friends: Gene Cretz, U.S. Ambassador to Libya, talks about U.S.-Libyan relations.

“We are currently working with Libya on the following issues: counterterroism, anti-al Qaeda active and ... the problem in Darfur,” Cretz said, also citing Libya’s support of the UNHCR as another common goal between the two countries.

In order to achieve these goals and to increase dialogue between the two countries, Cretz stressed the importance of people-to-people diplomacy between Libyans and Americans.

“We have a full plan to accomplish this ... We’re now issuing almost 50 [American] visas a day to Libyans at our facility in Tripoli, which allows [Libyan] people to come here and build personal relationships with Americans,” Cretz said.

Nearly 1,700 Libyans are currently studying in the U.S. and the American government intends to work with its Libyan counterpart to increase that number to 6,000, according to Cretz.

The U.S. has also sought to offer other new opportunities for Libyans to come to America by creating the first NASA-sponsored space program for Libyan students and by reinstating the Fulbright Scholarship Program that enables Libyan students to study in American universities. These examples, however, are just a small part of an American effort to offer education opportunities to Libyan students and professionals, Cretz said.

As the first ambassador to Libya in over 35 years, Cretz has had the privilege of witnessing these positive changes as well as a number of other positive firsts: “In the 10 months I’ve been there [at the embassy in Libya] we’ve had the first visit from a four-star general to Libya in 40 or 50 years; we took a group from the Libyan military to the U.S.S. Eisenhower for the first time; we raised the flag at our embassy which is the first time the US flag has flown over the skies of Tripoli in 40 years ... everything that we [at the embassy] do is a first.”

Cretz also noted another benefit of being the first ambassador to Libya in so long: “I can’t do any worse than my predecessor did ... because nobody remembers what my predecessor did.”