Libya’s anti-regime denies negotiations as fighting flares
Nato will be defeated, won’t change regime – Gaddafi
Libya’s rebels denied yesterday they are engaged in negotiations with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime as they came under deadly rocket fire in Misurata but seized a key stretch of road towards the Tunisian border.
Russian envoy Mikhail Margelov, speaking one day after visiting Tripoli, had declared earlier that the strongman’s camp had forged multiple contacts with the Libyan opposition in a number of European capitals.
“I can assure you there is and there was no negotiation between the NTC and the regime,” Mahmud Jibril, the head of international affairs in the rebel National Transitional Council, said in Naples, Italy. At a joint news conference with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, Mr Jibril said that, were negotiations to take place, the NTC would “announce it out of commitment to our friends all over the world”.
Mr Frattini also questioned the possibility of talks between the two sides.
“Italy has always encouraged the search for contacts and a solution based on dialogue but unfortunately the regime has not sent any positive response and has always demanded that Gaddafi’s remaining in power be guaranteed,” he said.
Mr Margelov, who held talks with the rebels in their Benghazi stronghold last week, said yesterday that representatives of Col Gaddafi had made contact with the rebels in European capitals including Berlin, Paris and Oslo. The Russian envoy said the Libyans needed an opportunity to negotiate, “a mechanism that brings them together and if the international community can provide such a mechanism that would be a great help”.
“What we have to do now is to support all the efforts inside Libya,” said Mr Margelov, who is seeking a mediating role in the Libyan conflict. “Political crisis cannot be resolved by military means.”
And Nato yesterday slammed as “cynical” an offer in an Italian newspaper interview by Col Gaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, that the regime in Tripoli was ready to organise internationally-supervised elections.
“Once again, it is an instance of what I would call a cynical PR ploy,” said alliance media officer Oana Lungescu during a news briefing on the military campaign.
“It is hard to imagine that after 41 years in which Gaddafi abolished elections, the Constitution, political parties, trade unions... (that) overnight a dictator would turn into a democrat.”
On the battle front in Misurata, forces loyal to Col Gaddafi killed 10 people and wounded 40 when they pounded the western rebel-held port city with a volley of Grad rockets, a rebel official said.
In an audio message aired on state television yesterday evening, Col Gaddafi said that Nato will be defeated and will fail in its bid to bring about regime change in Libya.