Libya’s new rulers said on yesterday they are ready to forgive the forces of slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi who battled rebels trying to topple his autocratic regime during the brutal revolution.

“In Libya we are able to absorb all. Libya is for all,” the National Transitional Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in Tripoli as he launched a national reconciliation conference organised by the NTC.

“Despite what the army of the oppressor did to our cities and our villages, our brothers who fought against the rebels as the army of Gaddafi, we are ready to forgive them,” he said in Arabic remarks that were translated into English by an official. “We are able to forgive and tolerate,” he added.

The conference, the first of its kind since the NTC on October 23 declared the total liberation of Libya, was attended by delegates from the major Libyan tribes, as well as from Qatar and Tunisia.

Libya’s new interim Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib echoed Abdel Jalil.

“National reconciliation is an essential condition to build the constitutional institutions of a state,” he told the conference.

“The future cannot be built with revenge as a base.”

But he said that those who “committed torture, rape, murders and stole public wealth (during the revolution) have to be held accountable.”