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Rebel fighters take up a position in the western entrance of Ajdabiyah May 18, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Mohammed Salem
TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON |
TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday it was inevitable Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would have to leave power and only then could a democratic transition in the North African state proceed.
Obama was speaking in a major address about the Middle East where a series of uprisings this year have toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt and inspired a three-month-old revolt in Libya that aims to overthrow Gaddafi after 41 years in power.
"Time is working against Gaddafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council," Obama said in Washington.
"When Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed," he said, defending his decision to take military action against the Libyan leader's government.
His comments echoed those of NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen who said on Thursday that military and political pressure were weakening Gaddafi and would eventually topple him.
Acting under a U.N. mandate, NATO allies including France, Britain and the United States are conducting air strikes that aim to stop Gaddafi using military force against civilians.
In some of the latest strikes, NATO hit Gaddafi's forces around 15 km (9 miles) east of the rebel-held town of Zintan in the Western Mountains region. The town and the port city of Misrata have seen some of the heaviest fighting in recent weeks.
A Reuters reporter in Zintan said NATO strikes on a government weapons depot outside the city sent plumes of smoke into the sky. Government shelling of rebel divisions near the town killed at least one rebel and wounded three, a medical official in the town said.
Rebels control eastern Libya and pockets in the west but the conflict has reached a military stalemate as rebel attempts to advance on Gaddafi's stronghold of Tripoli have stalled.
Western governments, under pressure from skeptical voters, are counting on Gaddafi's administration to collapse.
"We have significantly degraded Gaddafi's war machine. And now we see results, the opposition has gained ground," Rasmussen told a news conference in the Slovak capital, Bratislava.
"I am confident that a combination of strong military pressure and increased political pressure and support for the opposition will eventually lead to the collapse of the regime."
DIPLOMATIC FLURRY
The last few days have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity focusing on a possible ceasefire deal. Pro-Gaddafi officials traveled to Moscow for talks and United Nations envoys are trying to broker a short-term pause to allow aid to flow.
But Western powers are likely to stress their determination to keep the pressure on Gaddafi when heads of state from the Group of Eight industrialized nations meet on May 27-28 in the French seaside resort of Deauville.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the summit host, has been among the most interventionist Western leaders.
And in a bid to raise pressure on Tripoli, the European Union is considering tightening sanctions by blacklisting some Libyan ports to prevent exports of oil and imports of fuel, a Western diplomatic source told Reuters.
EU experts have reached an agreement over putting the Libyan ports of Tripoli, Zuara, Zawiyah, al-Khoms, Ras Lanuf and Brega on the sanctions list and proposals could be submitted to the EU sanctions committee next week, the source said.
Gaddafi's government is seeking to raise fuel imports by using a loophole in international sanctions..
Civil war has crippled the refining industry and Gaddafi urgently needs fuel imports to keep his military operating and civilian vehicles running in the areas he controls.
"West Libya's supply of refined products is still sufficient. Western powers want a lot more control over supplies to Libya," the source said.
Even so, the conflict could last months or longer if Gaddafi hangs on despite war, NATO strikes, sanctions and an indictment by the International Criminal Court, one analyst said.
"It is still likely to be long and drawn out. There is little incentive at the moment for either side, particularly the opposition, to go for a negotiated settlement," said Henry Smith, Libya analyst for London-based consultancy Control Risks.
DEFECTIONS DENIED
Diplomats are watching reports that Gaddafi's wife, daughter and the country's top oil official have left Libya, in part because they raise questions about the leader's ability to hold his entourage together.
A Tunisian security source and a Libyan opposition source with links to the ruling circle said this week that Gaddafi's wife Safia and daughter Aisha were staying on the Tunisian island of Djerba, near the border with Libya.
And Libyan rebel officials, as well as official sources in Tunisia, told Reuters that Shokri Ghanem, a former prime minister who runs Libya's oil industry, had left Libya via Tunisia, though it was unclear where he had gone.
Government officials in Tripoli have denied the reports but produced no evidence of the whereabouts of the three.
"Shokri Ghanem is in his position, at work. If he's out of the country he'll be coming back," Khaled Kaim, Libya's deputy foreign minister and a key government spokesman, told Reuters.
"As for the family of the leader, they're still here in Libya. Where else would they be?"
(Additional reporting by Martin Santa in Bratislava, Isabel Coles in Cairo, Souhail Karam in Rabat, Tarek Amara and Sylvia Westall in Tunis, Matt Robinson in Zintan and Emma Farge, Peter Apps, Dmitry Zhdannikov and William Maclean in London, Writing by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Maria Golovnina)
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The West dosen?t want Libya?s oil. They want to see a hole dug six feet deep and three feet wide for Gaddaffi to lay in!!! Rest in Peace Gaddaffi. Libya will be better off without Gaddafi, at least no more people will go missing just because they say something that Gaddaffi and his family dosen?t like. America will finnaly bring Gaddaffi to pay for the mostly 240 Americans that were aboard Pan Am flight 103, that was bombeed over Scotland, ordered by Gaddafi himself.
Yeah, they all said that about Castro for 50 years too.
Chat about this story w/ TalkitaSource: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/worldNews/~3/ZfQm9HV8sLE/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110519
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