FILE - In this Wednesday, July 20, 2011 file photo, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi gets into a car outside the Russian Foreign Ministry, after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. Libyan rebels have captured Moammar Gadhafi's foreign minister, a rebel official said Thursday. Ahmed Said, an adviser to the interior minister in the rebels' interim government, confirmed that the foreign minister had been captured but he did not identify him by name. A week ago, Gadhafi's Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi told British broadcaster Channel 4 that Gadhafi's 42-year rule was over.(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, July 20, 2011 file photo, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi gets into a car outside the Russian Foreign Ministry, after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. Libyan rebels have captured Moammar Gadhafi's foreign minister, a rebel official said Thursday. Ahmed Said, an adviser to the interior minister in the rebels' interim government, confirmed that the foreign minister had been captured but he did not identify him by name. A week ago, Gadhafi's Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi told British broadcaster Channel 4 that Gadhafi's 42-year rule was over.(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, File)
PARIS (AP) ? Russia recognized the Libyan rebel movement as the country's acting leadership Thursday, a key endorsement hours ahead of an international conference seeking to map Libya's future.
The summit in Paris of 60 world leaders and top envoys is also looking to free up billions in frozen Libyan assets worldwide to help the opposition, and reconcile diplomatic differences over the NATO-led airstrike campaign that helped oust iron-fisted leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The meeting is the first international gathering for the rebel-backed National Transitional Council now that it has taken Tripoli and controls most of Libya, and a test of its readiness to run a country ravaged by months of civil war and decades of dictatorship.
The council is expected to present a detailed list of requests at the conference, which comes 42 years to the day after Gadhafi seized power in a coup. It may seek short-term loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, U.S. officials said. While they do not want international peacekeepers, the rebels may seek a civilian U.N. police presence, they said.
While the United States and many European countries abandoned Gadhafi and recognized the rebels months ago, Russia was among those sharply critical of NATO's military campaign in Libya.
A short statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday said it recognized the National Transitional Council. Pressure will now fall on other countries to follow suit ? especially China and Algeria.
China, a big investor in Libya, agreed at the last minute to send an envoy to the Paris conference, and stressed that the United Nations should take a leading role in Libya's future.
Asked about recognizing the rebels, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said only that China respects the choice of the Libyan people and attaches importance to the "role played by the National Transitional Council in the settlement of the Libyan issue."
Algeria offered safe haven to Gadhafi's wife and three of his children on Monday, drawing ire from the Libyan rebels. Algerian newspaper El Watan reported, citing unidentified officials in President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's office, said Gadhafi himself also sought refuge across the border but the Bouteflika refused to take his phone calls.
One country notably absent from the meeting is South Africa, which has had ties over the years to Gadhafi and has been critical of the way NATO and key Western powers have handled the Libya situation.
In a state visit to Norway on Thursday, South African President Jacob Zuma said the African Union was undermined in talks over Libya, and criticized Western countries' use of military force that helped the rebels.
Instead of aid for Libya, the financial focus at Thursday's conference will be on unfreezing assets linked to Gadhafi in banks worldwide. The money was blocked by a U.N. resolution earlier this year aimed at persuading Gadhafi to stop his violent crackdown on anti-government protests.
French officials say at least $50 billion linked to Gadhafi is believed to be squirreled away across the world. British officials have put the figure as high as $110 billion. France has received authorization to transfer euro1.5 billion, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hopes to announce in Paris that $1.5 billion in Gadhafi regime assets frozen in the United States have been distributed on behalf of the rebels, U.S. officials said. That money is about half the liquid assets of the more than $30 billion in frozen Libyan assets in the United States.
Summit hosts French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, two of the most vocal backers of the rebels, are eager for the Libyans themselves to be seen as taking the lead, instead of outside powers.
The transition process "is Libyan-led, this is Libyan-owned, this is not Iraq," British Foreign Minister William Hague said on BBC Radio Thursday.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told reporters in Brussels that the European bloc foresees four areas in which it could help Libya move toward to democracy: immediate humanitarian aid and supplies; security sector reform; economic support ? including the lifting of sanctions; and help in building civil society and democracy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the first priority is to improve the humanitarian situation, ensuring that hospitals have medicine and people have food and water.
"Libya, because of its oil wealth, doesn't have a money problem," Merkel was quoted as telling the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. "So our help will be geared more toward building up democracy and infrastructure."
British officials have stressed that Libya's interim government must use Thursday's summit to offer assurances over the timetable toward elections. But Hague indicated there could be flexibility over the National Transitional Council's commitment to hold elections within eight months.
Council leaders Mustafa Abdul-Jalil and Mahmoud Jibril are expected to be among 31 heads of state and government and 11 foreign ministers at the conference, along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and leaders of NATO, the European Union, African Union, the Arab League, and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
_____
Jim Heintz in Moscow, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Scott McDonald in Beijing, Bjoern H. Amland in Oslo, and Greg Keller, Matthew Lee and David Stringer in Paris contributed to this report.
Associated Press
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.