Translated material
Peace versus war
NATO is not going to arm the Libyan opposition and divide Libya
The war in Libya is taking on a protracted nature, and the Western coalition, including NATO countries and their Arab allies, has stepped up efforts to find a political solution together with international partners. Today the stumbling block...
The war in Libya is taking on a protracted nature, and the Western coalition, including NATO countries and their Arab allies, has stepped up efforts to find a political solution together with international partners. To date, the fate of Gaddafi remains a stumbling block.
Today, high-ranking diplomats of the "contact group", which includes NATO participants in the military operation, a number of Arab countries, as well as the League of Arab States and the African Union, are gathering in the Qatari capital Doha. Then the action is transferred to Berlin, where the same plus Russia and Ukraine meet at the level of foreign ministers.
On his way to both meetings, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spoke to reporters at the alliance's Brussels headquarters. NATO is involved in the search for a political solution, opposes the division of Libya and is not going to arm the opposition, he said. Rasmussen confirmed that there could be no purely military solution to the Libyan crisis, but was rather skeptical of the African Union's proposed Roadmap for a settlement.
On Sunday, the presidents of a number of African countries visited Tripoli, proposed a ceasefire plan to Gaddafi, and he seems to have accepted it. The plan provides for the retention of Gaddafi's top leadership position in Libya and negotiations with the opposition. On Monday, these same venerable representatives of the African Union, having arrived in the rebel capital of Benghazi and held talks with the National Transitional Council, were forced to leave their hotel soon, going to the airport to the chanting of a crowd of thousands: “Gaddafi, go away!”
NATO welcomes any proposal to stop violence against civilians. But the ceasefire must be "credible and verifiable," Rasmussen stressed, recalling that Gaddafi had repeatedly declared a ceasefire, but deceived. As conditions for a ceasefire, the Secretary General called the complete cessation of acts of violence, armed and forceful actions against the civilian population. In addition, any solution to the crisis must meet the "fair demands of the Libyan people in terms of political reforms," the Secretary General said. That is, there is hardly a place for Gaddafi in this preliminary scheme.
NATO does not yet have information about any significant role of Al-Qaeda in the Libyan events, but this danger, according to the Secretary General, cannot be ruled out.
The alliance does not want to split Libya into two parts if Gaddafi desperately clings to power in Tripoli, and the opposition consolidates in the east of the country. “We will do our best to avoid this. From the very beginning, we have stood for the territorial integrity of Libya and a political solution to the crisis based on the unity of the Libyan state,” Rasmussen stressed.
At the very moment we were talking to the head of NATO, word came that the opposition had regained control of Ajdabiya, an important city 160 kilometers west of Benghazi.
From Saturday morning to Sunday morning, the alliance aircraft made almost 300 sorties, destroyed 49 tanks, 9 armored personnel carriers, 3 anti-aircraft guns and attacked four ammunition depots.