The international contact group on Libya will meet on Wednesday in the Qatari capital of Doha, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said yesterday.
France is trying “to convince the African Union [AU] to be present in Qatar next week because that’s where the contact group is to meet on April 13,” Juppe told French lawmakers in Paris.
The AU did not attend the March 29 international conference in London that set up the contact group which is “charged with ensuring the political governance of the military intervention and the implementation of UN resolutions,” Juppe said.
Photo: Reuters
France wants members of the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) that is fighting Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s forces to attend a EU foreign ministers’ meeting next week ahead of the contact group.
“I’m working for them to be heard on Monday by the council of foreign ministers in Brussels,” he said.
“There is apparently still some resistance from a few countries but we have to speak to them [the TNC] even if of course they don’t have a monopoly on representing the Libyan people,” Juppe said.
The London conference saw more than 40 countries and organizations, including the UN and NATO, gather to thrash out an international response to the Libya crisis.
The group was set up with the aim of providing leadership and an overall political direction to the international effort; a forum for coordinating the response; and a focal point for contact with the Libyan parties.
While Britain, France and the US have driven forward the military action on Libya, they have been determined to ensure Arab nations are seen to be supporting their efforts.
Meanwhile, a NATO air strike hit a Libyan rebel position near the oil town of Brega yesterday, killing at least five people, rebel fighters and a hospital worker said.
Reuters reporter Michael Georgy saw bloodstained stretchers being brought out of the hospital in Ajdabiyah, where those wounded in the attack were being treated.
“It was a NATO air strike on us. We were near our vehicles near Brega,” wounded fighter Younes Jumaa said from his stretcher at the hospital.
It was the second time in less than a week that rebels blamed NATO for bombing their comrades by mistake. Thirteen died in an air strike not far from the same spot on Saturday.
Nurse Mohamed Ali said at least five people died yesterday’s attack. Medical workers carried uniforms soaked in blood from one of hospital rooms.
Some rebel fighters were weeping on their knees in the corridor.
“We were standing by our tanks and NATO fired two rockets at us,” said one, Salem Mislat. “NATO are liars. They are siding with Qaddafi.”
In other developments, Libya accused Britain of damaging an oil pipeline in an air strike, hours after rebels said government attacks had halted production of oil they hope to sell to finance their uprising.
“British warplanes have attacked, have carried out an air strike against the Sarir oilfield which killed three oilfield guards and other employees at the field were also injured,” Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told reporters.
There was no immediate comment from Britain’s Ministry of Defence or from NATO.
Kaim said the strike damaged a pipeline connecting the oilfields to the Marsa el Hariga port.
“There is no doubt this aggression ... is against international law and is not covered by the UN resolution,” he said.
Any damage to a pipeline leading to Marsa el Hariga is likely to cause more harm to the rebels than to Qaddafi.
A rebel spokesman had said Qaddafi artillery hit rebel-held oilfields in Misla and the Waha area on Tuesday and Wednesday, halting production.
The rebels regained ground around the oil port of Brega on Wednesday, but repeated accusations NATO was not doing enough to help them as Qaddafi’s forces unleashed yet more mortar rounds, tank fire and artillery shells on Misrata.
Misrata, Libya’s third city, rose up with other towns against Qaddafi’s rule in mid-February, and is now under siege by government troops after a violent crackdown put an end to most protests elsewhere in the west of the country.
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