The US is pressing its European allies to set tough sanctions on the Libyan government, to turn up the heat on Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and convince his remaining loyalists to abandon the regime, US officials said. US President Barack Obama’s administration also declared it stood ready to aid Libyans seeking to oust their longtime leader.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to make the administration’s case for stronger action to foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy during a series of high-level talks yesterday in Geneva.
Clinton will also look to coordinate future US sanctions on Qaddafi’s government with senior officials from Russia, Australia and the EU so that the international community presents unified opposition to the attacks that have killed hundreds of people in the North African country, senior administration officials said on Sunday.
They spoke after Clinton said the US could offer “any type of assistance” to anti-Qaddafi Libyans organizing in the east of the country, though she made no mention of any US military help to a provisional government that is organizing or of a no-fly zone over the country.
“We want him to leave and we want him to end his regime and call off the mercenaries and those troops that remain loyal to him,” Clinton told reporters a day after Obama branded Qaddafi an illegitimate ruler who must leave power immediately.
Senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration planning, said they expected EU sanctions as early as yesterday and pointed to the far larger economic impact they could have because most of Libya’s exports go to the continent.
Tougher measures are being considered, the officials said.
Future US actions will focus on three fronts: enforcing sanctions already imposed against senior members of Qaddafi’s government; providing humanitarian assistance for Libyans fleeing to neighboring countries to escape the violence; and convincing decision-makers that they support Qaddafi at their own peril.
The last goal is aimed at accelerating the end of Qaddafi’s regime. US officials are hoping that their message reaches those in his inner circle, “some of whom may be in fact be rational, some of whom may be interested in self-preservation, maybe interested in not ending up in The Hague,” an official said, referring to the International Criminal Court.
Officials said Clinton’s talks are intended to advance the conversation and prepare for a protracted struggle with Gadhafi.
Clinton said the US was reaching out to many different Libyan groups preparing to lead their country out of four decades of dictatorship.
“We are just at the beginning of what will follow Qaddafi,” she said.
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