WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Top U.S. diplomat Condoleezza Rice will make a landmark trip to Libya this week, the first by a U.S. Secretary of State in more than half a century, the State Department announced on Tuesday.

Her trip is a tangible sign of warming U.S.-Libya relations, which first began to thaw when Tripoli gave up its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003.

"It is a historic stop," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "It certainly does mark a new chapter in U.S.-Libya relations," he told reporters in announcing the trip.

Rice, who is expected to meet Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during her brief trip to Tripoli, will also visit Maghreb nations Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco and stop over in Lisbon, Portugal, before returning to Washington on Sunday.

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was the last top U.S. diplomat to visit Tripoli and he made the trip in May, 1953. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; Editing by Kristin Roberts)

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