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Prim e Minister Tony Blair's handshake with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi must be taken with a pinch of salt but sealed a significant victory in the battle against weapons proliferation and terrorism, the British press said today.

"Mad dog and the Englishman," said the mass-circulation Sun above a photograph used unaninimously by the British press of Blair's extraordinary meeting with Kadhafi in the Libyan leader's tent outside Tripoli.

"Democrat and dictator unite against terror," said The Times.

Others were more scathing, the Daily Express saying sarcastically "Kadhafi? Now he's a great guy", The Independent asking "The golden handshake: Brave step or a cynical ploy?" Overall, Blair was given the benefit of the doubt and his decision to meet Kadhafi and signal the Libyan leader's return to the international fold was applauded.

"It is clearly the right thing to bring the mercurial Kadhafi inside the anti-terror tent," said the Financial Times.

"It makes the Middle East safer, as well as the West," said The Times.

Blair's argument that the trip would encourage other leaders to relinquish weapons programmes was "delivered with burning conviction, but it should not be taken quite at face value," said the Guardian.

It is unlikely Blair will sit down soon with North Korea's Kim Jong-Il or Israel's Ariel Sharon to congratulate them on giving up their nuclear arsenals, it said.

But The Times jusitified Blair's trip, saying Libya had "moved with astonishing speed" to dismantle its illegal weapons programmes.

"In what has been a losing battle against weapons proliferation, this is the most significant advance since South Africa got rid of its nuclear weapons," the newspaper said.

For many though, the real reason behind Blair's hasty trip to pow-wow with Kadhafi was not to encourage other Middle Eastern states to give up weapons but to seal lucrative oil deals, valuable to British companies.

"A poll of major oil companies four years ago showed that Libya was now 'the number one preferred location' for oil exploration and production," said the Guardian.

Some were also alarmed that Blair had agreed to supply Libya with military equipment and training.

"If anything is sure to blow up in his face, be it tomorrow or 20 years from now, it is this, for we have been down this route before," said the Daily Express, pointing to previous arms sales by the West to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The world is completely changed, says Blair, but for those who remember western support for Saddam in the 1980s, this has an uncanny echo," agreed the Guardian. – Sapa-AFP.

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