Libya rebels reject African Union plan for talks.

Libyan rebels on Sunday rejected an African Union peace plan for their country because they said it would leave Muammar Qaddafi in power, a day after they had welcomed the plan for negotiations.

African leaders agreed at a meeting in Equatorial Guinea on Friday on a peace plan that rules the Libyan leader out of talks with rebels and presented it to both sides in the hope that it could lead to negotiations.

The plan includes a commitment from Mr. Qaddafi “in favor of an inclusive process of dialogue ... and his acceptance that he will not be part of the process of negotiations.”

It makes no call for Mr. Qaddafi to step down, a key demand of rebels in the National Transitional Council who reiterated at the meeting that he had to go for any political solution to the conflict.

Both the government of Colonel Qaddafi and the Libyan rebel opposition council had welcomed on Saturday the AU plan for negotiations, but diplomats and observers say it is a fragile accord that belies divisions.

“We understood that the spirit of the document is that Colonel Qaddafi will not have a role to play in the future of Libya,” Mansour Sayf Al Nasr, the rebel’s representative for France, told reporters at the summit in Equatorial Guinea.
Libyan Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Al Mahmoudi also had welcomed talks with the opposition council, adding that initial contacts have already been made in Cairo and Norway, an Al Arabiya correspondent in Tripoli reported.

“We are very happy that we have reached this point, that we can now say very soon we will be launching the talks in Addis Ababa and we believe we will get the necessary support from everyone,” South African President Jacob Zuma said late Friday.

“It has been a big success. It has been long but good -- everybody was able to give his opinion,” said Ramtane Lamamra, head of the African Union’s peace and security commission.

It took hours of debate stretching over two days at the African Union summit in Equatorial Guinea for an accord to emerge -- and even then there was little new.

“The mountain has produced a mouse,” quipped one African diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

New elements in the roadmap include provisions for a multinational peacekeeping force organized by the United Nations.

But the highlight of the plan—that Libyan leader had agreed to stay out of the negotiations—had been announced a week earlier after a meeting in Pretoria.

The emphasis is on inclusive and consensual negotiations that could allow Colonel Qaddafi to “return to the game when he wants to,” the diplomat said.

But that means the 53-nation African Union was been unable to take a position on the future of the Libyan leader, which is a key sticking point between the two sides.

Pressed at the final press conference, Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure evaded the question. Instead, he gave a recap of the history of the roadmap before concluding that the African Union wanted peace.

Colonel Qaddafi was one of the main contributors to African Union running costs but also, thanks to his petrodollars, unilaterally funded several projects across the continent for years.

An African diplomat, who did not wished to be named, said: “It is not so much that they support Mr. Qaddafi but they are afraid of creating a precedent.”

(Mustapha Ajbaili, a senior editor at Al Arabiya English