Global General

Western, Arab talks to focus on Libya 'end-game'

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-06-09 13:17

MISRATA - Western and Arab nations meet in Abu Dhabi on Thursday to focus on what one US official called the "end-game" for Libya's Muammar Gadhafias NATO once again stepped up the intensity of its air raids on Tripoli.

At the United Nations, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said its investigators had found evidence linking Gadhafito a policy of raping opponents, while in the US Congress a bipartisan group proposed that US President Barack Obama use frozen Libyan government assets to pay for humanitarian aid for Libyan people caught up in the civil war.

NATO air strikes resumed in Tripoli on Wednesday night after a lull that followed the heaviest day of bombings since March. Thousands of Gadhafitroops advanced on Misrata on Wednesday, shelling it from three sides and killing at least 12 rebels.

Ministers from the so-called Libya contact group, including the United States, France and Britain, as well as Arab allies Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan, agreed in May to set up a fund to help the rebels in the civil war.

They are expected to firm up this commitment in the United Arab Emirates capital and press the rebels to give a detailed plan on how they would run the country if Gadhafistood down as leader of the oil producing North African desert state.

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"The international community is beginning to talk about what could constitute end-game to this," one senior US official told reporters aboard US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's plane which landed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday night.

"That would obviously include some kind of ceasefire arrangement and some kind of political process ... and of course the question of Gadhafiand perhaps his family is also a key part of that," the US official said.

Both Libya's rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) and its Western allies have rejected Libyan government ceasefire offers that do not include Gaddafi's departure, saying he and his family must relinquish power before any talks can begin.

The US official said there have been general discussions about what might happen to Gadhafibut nothing specific on "where he should go, or whether he should remain in Libya for that matter".

US officials on Wednesday announced delivery of the TNC's first US oil sale, part of a broader strategy they hope will get money flowing to the cash starved group.

US oil refiner Tesoro announced in May it had purchased the 1.2 million barrel cargo, which US officials said was due to arrive in Hawaii on Wednesday aboard a tanker chartered by Swiss oil trader Vitol.