US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi - once reviled as a "mad dog" by a US president - on Friday on a historic visit which she said proved that Washington had no permanent enemies.

Rice's trip, the first by a US secretary of state to the North African country in 55 years, is intended to end decades of enmity, five years after Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction programme.

 "I think we are off to a good start. It is only a start but after many, many years, I think it is a very good thing that the US and Libya are establishing a way forward," Rice told a news conference after talks and dinner with Gaddafi at a compound bombed by US warplanes in 1986.

She said she hoped there would be a new US ambassador in Libya "soon." "Rice's visit is proof that Libya has changed, America has changed and the world has changed. There is dialogue, understanding and entente between the two countries now," said Libyan foreign minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam.

For years, Washington considered Gaddafi a major supporter of terrorism and one of its most prominent enemies. Incidents such as the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, for which a Libyan agent was convicted, and the US air raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986 sent tensions soaring.

But in recent years Gaddafi has cooled his anti-Western rhetoric and sought to bring Libya back into the international mainstream.

US officials said Rice's talks with Gaddafi had been wide-ranging and he gave her a mandolin as a gift. The two discussed Sudan's Darfur conflict, the Middle East, and terrorism, among other issues.

On Friday, he welcomed Rice in an incense-perfumed room in his compound and they later took Iftar, the traditional meal breaking the fast during Ramadan.

Gaddafi, wearing a white robe and a green brooch in the shape of Africa, did not shake hands with Rice but put his right hand over his heart. By Muslim tradition, men should avoid contact with females during the fasting time.

The compound where they met includes his former home, which has been kept in ruins since it was bombed by US jets in 1986. The US strike, which killed about 40 people including an adopted daughter of Gaddafi, marked one of the lowest points in the decades of enmity between the two nations.

"This demonstrates that the US doesn't have permanent enemies," Rice said of her visit.

"It demonstrates that when countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction, the US is prepared to respond. Quite frankly I never thought I would be visiting Libya and so it is quite something," she said.

John Foster Dulles was the last US Secretary of State to visit Tripoli - in May 1953, before Rice was born.-Reuters