French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said it was time for Libya’s rebels to negotiate with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s government, signaling growing impatience with progress in the conflict.
Longuet said on Sunday the rebels should not wait for Qaddafi’s defeat, while signaling that Paris’ objective was that the Libyan leader must leave power eventually.
Washington said it stood firm in its belief Qaddafi must go.
The messages from two leading members of the Western coalition opposing Qaddafi hinted at the strain the alliance is under after more than three months of air strikes that have cost billions of US dollars and failed to produce the swift outcome its backers had expected.
The rebels have refused to hold talks as long as Qaddafi remains in power, a stance which before now none of NATO’s major powers has publicly challenged.
“We have ... asked them to speak to each other,” Longuet, whose government has until now been among the most hawkish on Libya, said on French television station BFM TV.
Asked if it was possible to hold talks if Qaddafi had not stepped down, Longuet said: “He will be in another room in his palace with another title.”
Soon after, the US Department of State in Washington issued a message that gave no hint of compromise.
“The Libyan people will be the ones to decide how this transition takes place, but we stand firm in our belief that Qaddafi cannot remain in power,” it said in a written reply to a query.
In an interview published yesterday by the Algerian El Khabar newspaper, Saif al-Islam, a son of the Libyan leader, said his father’s administration was in talks with the French government, a claim Paris later denied.
Speaking from Tripoli, the newspaper quoted him as saying: “The truth is that we are negotiating with France and not with the rebels. Our envoy to [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy said that the French president was very clear and told him: ‘We created the [rebel] council, and without our support, and money, and our weapons, the council would have never existed.’ France said: ‘When we reach an agreement with you [Tripoli], we will force the council to cease fire,’” he was quoted as saying.
With no imminent end to the conflict in sight, cracks are emerging inside the NATO alliance. Some member states are balking at the burden on their recession hit finances, and many are frustrated that there has been no decisive breakthrough.
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