Friday, May 27, 2011

Libya rejects G8 call for Qaddafi to go and says open only to African Union

The Libyan regime on Friday rejected calls from a summit of G8 world powers for Colonel Muammar Qaddafi to stand down and said any initiative to resolve the crisis would have to go through the African Union.

“The G8 is an economic summit. We are not concerned by its decisions,” said Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaaim, after Russia joined NATO calls for Qaddafi’s departure, according to Agence-France Presse.

Tripoli also rejects Russian mediation and will “not accept any mediation which marginalizes the peace plan of the African Union,” he said. “We are an African country. Any initiative outside the AU framework will be rejected.”

Mr. Kaaim said he had no confirmation of a change in Russia’s position.

“We have not been officially informed. We are in the process of contacting the Russian government to verify reports in the press,” the official told a press conference.

At the end of a two-day meeting in France, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States said Mr. Qaddafi and his government had “lost all legitimacy” and must go.

“Qaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go,” they warned in a final statement, according to AFP.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, meanwhile, confirmed Friday he planned to visit the Libyan revolt bastion of Benghazi, adding that he hoped to make the trip with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain.

“We spoke about this with David Cameron. It should be a Franco-British initiative,” Sarkozy told reporters after the G8 summit in Deauville, adding that no date had yet been set for the trip to eastern Libya, according to AFP.

In contrast, African leaders at a summit in Addis Ababa on Thursday called for an end to NATO air strikes on Libya to pave the way for a political solution to the conflict.

The pan-African bloc also sought a stronger say in resolving the conflict.

It was a striking change in tone from Kremlin criticism of NATO air strikes in Libya, which are officially intended to protect civilians in a civil war but have effectively put the West on the side of protesters seeking Mr. Qaddafi’s removal.

NATO said it was preparing to deploy attack helicopters over the Arab North African state for the first time to add to the pressure on Mr. Qaddafi’s forces on the ground.

But his security forces demonstrated once again that they are far from a spent force, launching rocket attacks overnight on the revolt-held town of Zintan and fighting insurgents on the outskirts of the city of Misrata.

Libya’s official news agency has widely referenced Russia’s criticism of Western air strikes on Libya as going beyond a UN Security Council mandate to protect civilians. Medvedev however emphasized that the 68-year-old colonel no longer has the right to lead Libya, according to Reuters.

Protesters welcomed the news, with the headline on the website of Libyan pro-revolt newspaper Brnieq reading: “Tightening the noose on him, Russia says Gaddafi must go.”

A NATO-led coalition led by France and Britain has been bombing Libya since March, under a UN mandate to protect civilians caught up in a battle with opposition forces intent on ending Qaddafi’s rule of the six-million-people country.

There was skepticism that Mr. Qaddafi would agree to step aside, even with Russia now joining calls for his departure.

“Knowing his state of mind, I don't think he is going to step down... The positions are still very far apart (between the rebels and Tripoli),” Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said on the sidelines of the G8 summit, according to Reuters.

Previous attempts at mediation, by the African Union, Turkey and the United Nations, have also foundered on Qaddafi’s refusal to leave and the protesters’ refusal to accept anything less.

Revolt-held Misrata, Libya’s third biggest city and scene of some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, was hit by a second day of heavy fighting on its western outskirts.

Doctors at Misrata’s hospital said five protesters were killed and more than a dozen wounded in the fighting on Friday.

The World Health Organization said the fighting in Misrata had been killing an estimated 12 people a day, though casualties had declined after fighting eased in the past week.

The WHO did not give a total figure, but its daily estimate would mean a total of about 925 killed over the 77 days of intense fighting in Misrata.

(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya

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