(Adds details, background, Sarkozy's wife) BRUSSELS, July 12 (Reuters) - A top European Union official said on Thursday she was "cautiously optimistic" Libya shared the EU's aim of reaching a deal on the fate of six foreign medics facing death sentences for infecting children with HIV. "I am cautiously optimistic that we have reached a point where we all want to see a positive outcome to this matter," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement issued after contacts with Libyan authorities. Libya's Supreme Court upheld death sentences on Wednesday against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV while they worked at the children's hospital in the city of Benghazi in the 1990s. The statement said Ferrero-Waldner discussed the ruling with Libyan officials and the scheduled review on Monday of their case by the government-controlled High Judicial Council, which has the power to commute the sentence or pardon the medics. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Cecilia has travelled to Libya to visit the medics and for talks with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Sarkozy said on Thursday. France has been at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to get the nurses freed. In jail since 1999, the medics say they are innocent and were tortured to make them confess. Some Western scientists say negligence and poor hospital hygiene were the real culprits and that the six were made into scapegoats. The EU has pledged to fund medical care for the children and support the Benghazi hospital. Hopes were raised for a deal to win their release on Tuesday evening when Libya's Gaddafi Foundation charity, which has been central to the negotiations, said it had reached an accord with the children's families that "puts an end to the crisis". (Addition reporting by Emmanuel Jarry in Paris)
