[citation needed] Stabilization in the 21st century brought a return to cordial relations with neighboring countries and much of the Western world.
Liberia holds diplomatic relations with many western nations, including its long time partner the United States, as well as Russia, Cuba, and the People's Republic of China.
[23] The First Liberian Civil War, instigated by Charles Taylor and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) on December 24, 1989, eventually spread to neighboring Sierra Leone in 1991 when dissidents of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, began using Liberia as a staging ground for NPFL backed military assaults on border towns in Sierra Leone.
[136] Major items of Indian exports include engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, two wheelers, transportation equipment, steel and plastic products.
Gaddafi financially and militarily backed rebel leader Charles Taylor, under whose regime Liberia sought closer relations with Libya.
After Taylor was ousted in 2003, Liberia continued to maintain diplomatic relations with Libya, only severing them after the onset of the Libyan Civil War, and just recently reestablishing them.
Both countries established diplomatic relations on 28 April 1990[90] In 1960, Liberia and Ethiopia brought litigation against apartheid South Africa in the International Court of Justice to end its illegal occupation of Namibia.
[148] As part of Liberia's support for Namibia's liberation struggle, many Namibian students received Liberian passports which helped them study abroad.
[149] Namibia maintained a battalion of about 800 personnel in Grand Cape Mount county for several years, for most of the period part of UNMIL Sector 2, headquartered at Tubmanburg.
[38] The First Liberian Civil War, instigated by Charles Taylor and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) on December 24, 1989, eventually spread to neighboring Sierra Leone in 1991 when dissidents of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, began using Liberia as a staging ground for NPFL backed military assaults on border towns in Sierra Leone.
After the visit to the UK in 1848 of President Roberts, Queen Victoria put the Royal Navy ship HMS Amazon at the disposal of him and his family, for his return journey to Liberia.
[163] During the 1980s, the United States forged especially close ties with Liberia as part of a Cold War effort to suppress socialist and Marxist movements in Africa.
[164] The rise of Charles Taylor's government, the Liberian Civil War, regional instability and human rights abuses interrupted the previously close relations between Liberia and the United States.