Powers unlock $1 billion for Libya rebels
Key powers have vowed to unlock a billion dollars for hard-pressed Libyan rebels in talks to map out a “post-Gaddafi Libya” as a fresh volley of Nato air strikes rocked the capital on Friday.
Mikhail Margelov, the special envoy of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, meanwhile, said on Friday he was preparing to visit Tripoli to find a solution to the Libya conflict after meeting the Opposition in their Benghazi stronghold.
Libya’s former foreign minister Abdurrahman Shalgam said the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) needed at least $3 billion over the next four months to pay its expenses as it battles to oust Col. Muammar Gaddafi.
In a boost to the opposition, the United States joined Australia and Spain in recognising the NTC as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, with pressure mounting on the veteran leader to step down.
“Gaddafi’s days are numbered. We are working with our international partners through the UN to plan for the inevitable: a post-Gaddafi Libya,” US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.
“Time is on our side,” the chief US diplomat said, adding international military, economic and political pressure was mounting on the Libyan colonel to abandon his four decades in power at the helm of the north African nation.
Ms Clinton was meeting counterparts from Nato and other countries participating in the air strikes against Col. Gaddafi’s forces for a third round of Libya talks. The chief US diplomat said later that “people close to Gaddafi” have been making continuous contacts with many different interlocutors about the “potential for a transition” to a new regime. “There is not a clear way forward yet,” she said, also referring to the NTC as “the legitimate interlocutor” of the Libyan people.
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