TRIPOLI, Libya — The Libyan government spokesman said Monday that representatives of Moammar Gadhafi’s embattled government held face-to-face talks with U.S. officials on repairing ties between the nations.

There was no independent confirmation that such a meeting took place and the United States has been a strident opponent of Gadhafi’s government throughout the civil war with rebel forces based in the east of the country.

Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters in Tripoli that the purported talks were Saturday but he refused to say where or which officials took part.

“This is a first step and we want to take further steps,” he said. “We don’t want to be stuck in the past; we want to move forward all the time,” he told journalists at the hotel where foreign journalists are required to reside.

He described it as a “a first-step dialogue” to see about repairing relations between the two countries, which he said had been damaged by misinformation.