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MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a previously unannounced visit to Libya this week, the Kremlin said in a statement Monday.

He will be in the North African country on Wednesday and Thursday at the invitation of the Libyan leader, Moammar Gadhafi, the statement said.

Last week, Ukraine's president visited Libya, a major producer of oil and gas, and struck an oil deal with Gadhafi.

Russian natural gas company Gazprom announced last week that it is preparing to cooperate with Italy's Eni to work on gas projects in Libya. The announcement has raised concerns Moscow is planning to apply further pressure on energy hungry Europe.

A leaked confidential study by NATO economic experts in 2006 warned that Russia may be seeking to build a gas cartel including Algeria, Qatar, Libya, the countries of Central Asia and perhaps Iran, and cautioned that an OPEC-like near monopoly would strengthen Moscow's leverage over Europe.

The Kremlin has not given any details of Putin's trip to Libya, the first by a Kremlin leader.

Putin told a meeting of parliamentary deputies last month he was considering visiting Libya to try to settle economic differences between the two countries.

Speaking in Washington late Sunday, Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin said negotiations are under way with Tripoli over the repayment of Libyan debts to Russia, Interfax reported.

Pankin said no date had been fixed for talks on the issue.

Libya was a major customer for Soviet weapons, buying a large number of fighter jets, helicopters, tanks and other equipment. Moscow's support was essential for Libya, which faced international sanctions.

But military and other ties withered after the Soviet collapse and Libya's Soviet-made weapons have been taken out of use because of a lack of spare parts and maintenance.

Putin has moved to revive ties with many former allies, but he has taken no specific action to embrace Libya.

European arms makers have begun competing for Libya's orders amid a thaw in Tripoli's relations with the West.

Ties with the West began to improve in 2003 when Gadhafi announced he was dismantling his nuclear weapons program, and the United Nations lifted sanctions imposed 11 years earlier.

That same year, Libya accepted responsibility for the 1998 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, and agreed to pay restitution to the victims' families. In 2004, Libya paid compensation to the families of the 170 victims of the 1989 bombing of a French UTA passenger jet over Niger.