(Adds Libya and France signing nuclear, other agreements) By Anna Mudeva SOFIA, July 25 (Reuters) - Western diplomats rushed to rebuild ties with Libya on Wednesday after Tripoli freed six foreign medics convicted of infecting children with HIV, but the victims' families called for them to be returned to jail. A day after setting the medical workers free and shrugging off a diplomatic millstone that has slowed its emergence from decades of isolation, Libya signed cooperation accords with France during a visit by its president, Nicolas Sarkozy. But after the medics' eight-year imprisonment -- decried by Western capitals as a miscarriage of justice -- the case dragged on as diplomats voiced concern over the EU's quickly embracing Libya and the victims' families demanded Tripoli break ties with their home country Bulgaria. Libya released the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian- born doctor on Tuesday after signing a partnership deal with the European Union. The group flew to Sofia, where they were pardoned upon their arrival by Bulgaria's president. But on Wednesday, the families denounced the pardon. "The families expressed their condemnation and resentment at the recklessness of the Bulgarian nation when the Bulgarian president pardoned the nurses," the Libyan Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children said in a statement. Jailed since 1999, the six were twice condemned to death -- once specifically by firing squad -- until last week, when Libya commuted the sentences to life in prison following a financial settlement of $1 million each to 460 HIV victims' families. At the time, a spokesman for the families said their acceptance of the deal implied they had dropped their complaint. But around 56 of the children have died and anger is high in the Mediterranean port of Benghazi where the outbreak occurred. "The families demand ... Interpol police arrest the convicted medics to spend the rest of their punishment in jail," the association said. It also demanded Libya "cease immediately its relations with Bulgaria and to deport all Bulgarians from Libya and stop dealing with Bulgarian companies". INNOCENCE Looking dazed and tired, two of the nurses and the doctor held a news conference in Bulgaria. They gave few details of their ordeal but said they wanted to restate their innocence. "We are innocent, that is why we are here ... We just need to wait for the truth, it will come out soon," said doctor Ashraf Alhajouj, who recently took Bulgarian citizenship. They said the other three nurses did not feel well, but those who appeared before reporters said they would soon testify to Bulgarian prosecutors about their imprisonment and were seeking ways to possibly sue men they said tortured them. "We have forgiven our torturers. But it doesn't mean we will not sue them. We have yet to decide," said 42-year-old Nasya Nenova, who said she tried to kill herself in prison in 1999 because she could not stand being tortured by electric shocks. RIGHTS GROUPS CONCERNED The medics left Libya on a French plane with Sarkozy's wife, clearing the way for a visit by the president in which he sought to forge closer ties with the oil-exporting nation. "I am happy to be in your country to talk about the future," Sarkozy wrote in a golden book at the residence. Ministers of the two countries signed accords on a military-industrial partnership, a nuclear energy project and cooperation in science research and education, officials said. A British government spokesman said Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells would fly to Tripoli on Wednesday and meet Libyan ministers to "advance our bilateral relationship". Bulgaria also said it was considering writing off $54 million in Soviet-era debt it is owed by Libya to contribute to a deal that led to the release of the six medics. But the warming ties were tempered by concern that the EU should not compromise its human rights credentials by easing pressure on Tripoli over alleged abuses such as mistreatment of detainees and suspects and the lack of a free media. "We must not now reward Libya for the release of people who were detained in horrendous conditions for eight years," Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said. "Normalisation must be a long process in which Libya must first fulfil a series of criteria such as on human rights," he told Belgium's De Standaard newspaper. Libya started the process of emerging from international isolation in 2003 when it agreed to halt a prohibited weapons programme and pay compensation for the bombing of a U.S. airliner over Scotland in 1988 in which 270 people died. (Additional reporting by Salah Sarrar in Libya, Mark John in Brussels, and Tsvetelia Ilieva in Bulgaria)
