"The Bulgarian medics have expressed the will to bring civil suits against Libya for their unlawful arrest and against the people who have (allegedly) tortured them," Stankov told Bulgarian National Television.

The move came after 60 Libyan families of HIV-infected children brought civil suits last week against the medics seeking compensation. The Bulgarian foreign ministry has not said how much money is involved.

"The nurses can sue Libya to pay them compensation for a period during which they have been detained unlawfully. As a lawyer, I personally would not even use the word 'detention' here. What happened was 'kidnapping," Stankov said.

He said the Bulgarian nurses "have the right to sue the people who have tortured them."

The Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were in May condemned to death by a Libyan court, after having been detained for five years, on charges that they had infected more than 400 children in a hospital in Benghazi in northern Libya with the HIV virus.

The court in Benghazi also ruled the medics had to pay compensation of 270,000 dollars (200,000 euros) per child, while the families demanded 10 million dollars each. The claims of over 60 families were rejected due to procedural inaccuracy.

All six defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges and two of the nurses and the doctor said during the trial that they were tortured into making confessions.

Bulgaria earlier this month rejected a proposal by Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelraham Shalgham to pay 10 million euros (13.3 million dollars) for each child infected with the virus in order to have the verdict overturned, saying it did not believe the nurses were guilty.

Still, Stankov said "there is a serious will for dialogue on both sides."

He said he wanted the "dialogue to be held on a neutral territory. I would be glad if the European Union would agree to host such talks."

"We plan to further discuss our actions here in Bulgaria, but for me there is one line of discussion: EU-hosted talks over the case; a treatment of the Bulgarians also as victims in the AIDS process; and finally, a solution to the health problem of those 400 children," Stankov said.