Questions remain over NATO role in Libya
US, Britain, France agree to key role for NATO in military campaign, but
divisions remain among other alliance members.
Last Modified: 22 Mar 2011 23:47
Western nations carrying out a military operation in Libya have agreed to use
NATO to drive the operation but divisions remain among other members of the
alliance.
Barack Obama, the US president, agreed with David Cameron, the UK prime
minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, that NATO would play a key
role in the operation to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, the White House said
on Tuesday.
But the allies stopped short of endorsing NATO political leadership of the
mission, following resistance from alliance member Turkey.
The announcement came after Turkey warned that it could not agree to the
military alliance taking over the enforcement of the no-fly zone if their
mission went "outside the framework" of the UN decision.
France later proposed that a new political steering committee outside of NATO
be responsible for overseeing military operations over Libya to enforce the
UN-backed no-fly zone.
Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said the new body would bring
together foreign ministers from participating states, including Britain, France
and the US, as well as the Arab League.
It is expected to meet in the coming days, either in Brussels, London or Paris.
Juppe said not all members of the military coalition are members of NATO so
"this is therefore not a NATO operation".
However, he said the coalition would use NATO's "planning and intervention
capabilities".
Laurence Lee, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Brussels, said: "You can either
regard [the proposal] as another attempt by the French to outflank everybody
else and stay ahead of the game, or, if you're more kind about it, an attempt
by the French to display some sort of creativity and sensitivity in what is
more or less unchartered territory.
"The reason why [the proposal] seems perhaps to have some traction is because
NATO seems to find it so impossibly difficult at the moment to come to some
sort of agreement between themselves as to the way forward."
'Broad' global effort
On Monday, Barack Obama, the US president, had said that Washington would
transfer its leading role on Libya "within days" to ensure the burden of
enforcing the no-fly zone was shared.
The White House said on Tuesday that Obama had spoken to Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Turkey's prime minister, and that they had agreed to seek a "broad" global
effort on Libya.
Obama, on a visit to South America, spoke by telephone Monday evening to
Erdogan who has publicly denounced the military campaign against Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi as counter-productive.
Obama and Erdogan "reaffirmed their support for the full implementation" of
recent UN Security Council resolutions "in order to protect the Libyan people,"
a White House statement said.
In a speech to his ruling AK party on Tuesday, Erdogan said that Turkey "will
never point a gun at the Libyan people" and would explain its position to NATO
allies.
Speaking on Tuesday in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, Ban Ki-moon, the UN
secretary-general, said that the international campaign to enforce the no-fly
zone would continue until Gaddafi stopped military action against his own
people.
Ban said that "until he [Gaddafi] stops, I think that this military operation
to enforce a no-fly zone will have to continue".
The UN chief said that "the first and foremost thing should come from Colonel
Gaddafi, he must stop killing his own people".
Global criticism
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said "significant" military action in
Libya should recede in a matter of days, during talks in Moscow with Anatoly
Serdyukov, his Russian counterpart, on Tuesday.
Gates said that international forces were trying to minimise civilian
causalities in Libya, adding that "significant military fighting that has been
going on should recede in the next few days."
The Pentagon chief later confirmed that he was referring to US and allied
bombing raids, saying that there would be less need for air strikes once
Libya's air defences were eliminated.
"I think as we are successful at suppressing the air defences the level of
kinetic activity should decline," he told journalists travelling with him.
International criticism of the coalition enforcing the no-fly zone has
continued to grow, with India joining China in publicly calling for an end to
the airstrikes.
Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for China's foreign ministry, said on Tuesday that the
government opposed "the wanton use of armed force leading to more civilian
casualties and more humanitarian disasters". China had already called for a
ceasefire.
S M Krishna, the Indian foreign minister, called for a "cessation of armed
conflict". His office had previously issued a statement on Monday expressing
"regret" for the military intervention.
Pranab Mukherjee, the country's foreign minister, said in a speech to
parliament that "no external powers" should interfere in Libya.
"Nobody, not a couple of countries, can take that decision to change a
particular regime," he said.
Russian concern
China, India and Russia were among five countries that abstained from the UN
Security Council vote that approved Resolution 1973 authorising the no-fly zone
and military intervention.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, expressed concern to Gates about the
"indiscriminate" use of force by foreign powers in Libya, during talks in
Moscow on Tuesday.
On Monday, Medvedev had appeared to rebuke Vladimir Putin, the country's prime
minister, for comparing Western calls for action on Libya with the crusades.
Putin told workers at a missile factory that the UN Security Council resolution
authorising the use of force
against Gaddafi "resembles medieval calls for crusades".
Shortly afterwards, Medvedev said the use of such terms was unacceptable and
could stir up more violence.
Medvedev did not mention Putin by name, but the comments amounted to his
sharpest ever public criticism of his mentor and raised concerns of discord
between the two leaders ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
On Tuesday, Putin dismissed the allegations that he and Medvedev had disagreed
about Libya, saying that they were "close".
"As for the agreement or disagreement of the Russian leadership's views on the
events taking place in Libya, in our country, the Russian president heads
foreign policy, and there can be no divergence" of views, news agencies quoted
Putin as saying while on a visit to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
On Monday, the UN Security Council rejected a Libyan request for an emergency
meeting to halt what it called "military aggression" by coalition forces.
The council decided instead to hold a meeting already planned for Thursday to
give a briefing on the coalition air campaign to Ban.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
------------------------------------
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe : [email protected]
Unsubscribe : [email protected]
List owner : [email protected]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
