Monday, April 04, 2011

ATHENS/TRIPOLI: Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Abdel-Ati Obeidi told Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou Sunday that Libya wants to end fighting in the country and that he will next travel to Malta and Turkey to seek a way out of the crisis, Greek officials said.
Meanwhile a Turkish ship evacuated wounded from the besieged city of Misrata, leaving thousands more pleading to be rescued.

With rebels and Gadhafi forces seemingly at a stalemate in eastern Libya and civilians trapped by fighting in the west, diplomatic efforts have intensified to seek an end to the war.
Obeidi flew to Athens to convey a message from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“It seems that the Libyan authorities are seeking a solution,” Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas said after the envoy met Papandreou. “There needs to be a serious effort for peace and stability in the region.” He said Obeidi planned to travel on to Malta and Turkey.
Papandreou has been talking by phone with officials in Tripoli as well as the leaders of Qatar, Turkey and Britain over the last two days.

Underlining the desperate plight of civilians trapped in western Libya, a Turkish ship that sailed into Misrata to rescue some 250 wounded had to leave in hurry after crowds pressed forward on the dockside hoping to escape.
“It’s a very hard situation … We had to leave early,” said Turkish consular official Ali Akin after the ship stopped to pick up more wounded in the eastern rebel stronghold Benghazi.

Turkey’s foreign minister ordered the ship into Misrata after it spent four days waiting in vain for permission to dock. It arrived under cover from 10 Turkish air force F-16 fighter planes and two navy frigates, Akin told Reuters.
Gadhafi’s troops and the rebel force have become bogged down in fighting over the eastern oil town of Brega, a sparsely populated settlement spread over more than 25 kilometers.

In another strand of diplomatic contacts, a team of British diplomats headed by ambassador to Rome Christopher Prentice, arrived in Libya to meet rebel leaders in Benghazi. A British Foreign Ministry statement said the team would seek more information about the rebels’ Interim National Council, “its aims and more broadly what is happening in Libya.”

The rebels, meanwhile, named a “crisis team” with Gadhafi’s former interior minister as their armed forces chief of staff, and attempted to stiffen an enthusiastic but untrained and ill-disciplined volunteer army by putting professional soldiers at its head.

“We are reorganizing our ranks. We have formed our first brigade. It is entirely formed from ex-military defectors and people who’ve come back from retirement,” former air force major Jalid al-Libie told Reuters in Benghazi.
He said he could not reveal numbers, adding: “It’s quality that matters.”

Outside Brega, better rebel discipline was already in evidence Sunday. The less disciplined volunteers, and journalists, were being kept several kilometers east of the front.
In the west, Gadhafi’s forces continued to besiege Misrata, shelling a building that had been used to treat wounded, a resident said, killing one person and wounding more.

Misrata, Libya’s third city, is now surrounded by government troops.
A British-based doctor who gave his name as Ramadan told Reuters by telephone from the city that 160 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in fighting in Misrata over the past seven days.

After weeks of shelling and encirclement, Gadhafi’s forces appear to be gradually loosening the rebels’ hold on Misrata. Rebels say they still control the city center and the port, but government troops are pressing in.
Gadhafi’s troops are also mopping up resistance in the mountainous southwest of Tripoli.

Government forces shelled the small town of Yafran, southwest of the capital Sunday, killing two people, Arabiya television reported, quoting a witness.
They also shelled the city of Zintan, about 160 kilometers southwest of the capital, a resident said. – Reuters