Libyan foreign minister Abdelati Obeidi said today Libya's civil war was virtually over.
Asked in an interview if the conflict was finished, Mr Obeidi said: "Yes, this is my feeling."
"If I am in charge, I would tell them to lay down their arms," he said, referring to fighters loyal to Muammar Gadafy.
He was speaking on Britain's Channel 4 news, which said he was speaking via telephone from a house in Tripoli.
Asked if he knew where Col Gadafy was, he said: "No. No. No."
He said he was not in touch with many other government ministers but did not fear for his safety and hinted he might be able to play some role in the future of Libya. He did not indicate whether he had quit his role in government.
"They [the rebels] have a good idea about me, they know me," he said. "I am sure they will not harm me or my family. On the contrary, I feel when things are quiet we can speak to each other."
Last month, Mr Obeidi visited Moscow seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict which would involve all Libyans . Today, he said a negotiated settlement was highly unlikely.
"It looks that, you know, things have passed this kind of solution," he said.
"What I am worried about is law and order and the stability of the people. I hope those people [rebels] are all Libyans and they are not foreign - they are not occupiers - and people in our country try to mend these injuries and go over this crisis and start their responsibilities. They are responsible for the country."
Libya's rebel council earlier said t was offering an amnesty to any of Muammar Gadafy's entourage who kill or capture him.
Council chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil also said a Benghazi businessman, whom he did not identify, had offered a reward of two million Libyan dinars (€900,000) for Col Gadafy's capture.
"The National Transitional Council announces that any of his inner cicle who kill Col Gadafy or capture him, society will give amnesty or pardon for any crime he has committed," he told a news conference.
Foreign journalists prevented by Gadafy loyalists from leaving Tripoli's Rixos hotel were today released unharmed. Gunmen who had been guarding the 35-strong group at the Rixos reportedly surrendered their weapons and left.
Earlier today, a Reuters reporter inside the hotel, Missy Ryan, said food and water were running low. Pro-Gadafy gunmen who had patrolled the hotel compound were no longer in sight, she said, but it was not clear if they had withdrawn.
Col Gadafy has vowed today to fight on to death or victory after jubilant rebels yesterday forced him to abandon his Tripoli stronghold in an apparently decisive blow against the Libyan leader's 42-year rule.
Rebels ransacked Col Gadafy's Bab al-Aziziya bastion, seizing arms and smashing symbols of a ruler whose fall will transform Libya and rattle other Arab autocrats facing popular uprisings.
Col Gadafy said the withdrawal from his headquarters in the heart of the capital was a tactical move after it had been hit by 64 Nato air strikes and he vowed "martyrdom" or victory in his six-month war against the Western alliance and Libyan foes.
Urging Libyans to cleanse the streets of traitors, he said he had secretly toured Tripoli.
"I have been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly, without being seen by people, and ... I did not feel that Tripoli was in danger," Col Gadafy told loyalist media outlets. His whereabouts after leaving the compound, perhaps via a tunnel network to adjoining districts, remain unknown, although he appears to have been in Tripoli, at least until recently.
France and its partners at the United Nations were today drafting a resolution to unfreeze Libyan assets and unlock sanctions now that rebels appear close to ousting Col Gadafy, a French diplomatic source said today.
A rebel spokesman said Gadafy forces are bombarding areas of central Tripoli including the Bab al-Aziziyah compound seized yesterday.
"There were bombardments on Bab al-Aziziyah, Al Mansoura area and another area near Rixos hotel. Most of this bombardment was carried out by the regime's cells positioned in the Abu Salim area," said the spokesman.
Residents remained fearful, with empty streets, shuttered shops and piles of garbage testifying that life is still far from normal in the city of two million. Rebels manned checkpoints along the main thoroughfare into the city from the west.
People were defacing or erasing Gadafy portraits and other symbols in a city where they were once ubiquitous. They painted over street names and renamed them for rebel fighters who had become "martyrs". Plaques were torn off government offices.
"There are some fights going but hopefully today everything will be over," one rebel fighter said.
Fighting was reported last night in a southern desert city, Sabha, that rebels forecast would be Gadafy loyalists' last redoubt. Pro-Gadafy forces were shelling the towns of Zuara and Ajelat, west of Tripoli, Al-Arabiya TV said.
Omar al-Ghirani, a rebel spokesman, said loyalist forces had fired seven grad missiles at residential areas of the capital, causing people to flee their homes in panic. He said Gadafy troops had also fired mortar rounds in the area of the Tripoli airport.
The continued shooting suggested the six-month popular insurgency against Col Gadafy, a maverick Arab nationalist who defied the West and kept an iron hand on his oil-exporting, country for four decades, has not completely triumphed yet.
A spokesman for Col Gadafy said the Libyan leader was ready to resist the rebels for months, or even years.
"We will turn Libya into a volcano of lava and fire under the feet of the invaders and their treacherous agents," Moussa Ibrahim said, speaking by telephone to pro-Gadafy channels.
Rebel leaders would not enjoy peace if they carried out their plans to move to Tripoli from their headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, he said.
But Col Gadafy was already history in the eyes of the rebels and their political leaders planned high-level talks in Qatar today with envoys of the United States, Britain, France, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on the way ahead. Another meeting was scheduled for tomorrow in Istanbul.
China urged a "stable transition of power" in Libya and said today it was in contact with the rebel council, the clearest sign yet that Beijing has effectively shifted recognition to forces poised to defeat Col Gadafy.
China "respects the choice of the Libyan people", foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.
A senior representative for reconstruction in the rebel movement said a new government would honour all the oil contracts granted during the Col Gadafy era, including those of Chinese companies. "The contracts in the oil fields are absolutely sacrosanct," Ahmed Jehani said.
A spokesman for rebel-run oil firm AGOCO had warned on Monday Chinese and Russian firms could lose out on oil contracts for failing to back the rebellion.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev urged Col Gadafy and his foes to stop fighting and talk. "We want the Libyans to come to an agreement among themselves," he said, suggesting that Moscow could recognise the rebel government if it unites the country.
China and Russia, usually opposed to foreign intervention in sovereign states, did not veto a UN Security Council resolution in March that authorised Nato to use air power to protect Libyan civilians. But they criticised the scale of the air campaign and called for a negotiated solution. The victors are in no mood for dialogue with Col Gadafy.
"It's over! Gadafy is finished!" yelled a fighter over a din of celebratory gunfire across the Bab al-Aziziya compound, the former leader's sprawling citadel of power in the Libyan capital.
The hunt to find Col Gadafy is now on. Colonel Ahmed Bani, a rebel, told Al-Arabiya TV he was probably holed up somewhere in Tripoli. "It will take a long time to find him," he said.
Rebel National Council chief Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who was until February a loyal minister of Col Gadafy, cautioned: "It is too early to say that the battle of Tripoli is over. That won't happen until Gadafy and his sons are captured." In an interview with Italy's La Repubblica, he promised parliamentary and presidential elections in eight months' time.
"If I were to be nominated president, it would only be a temporary appointment and I would remain in that position only until the next elections, which would be the first free elections in our country," Abdel-Jalil said.
He said the council favoured trying Col Gadafy and his family in Libya rather than sending him to The Hague, where he and two others have been indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Mahmoud Jibril, head of the rebel government, also promised a transition towards democracy for Libyans. "The whole world is looking at Libya," he said, warning against summary justice.
Separately, the US and Nato were deeply concerned about possible looting and resale of conventional weapons, particularly shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, from Libyan arsenals as Col Gadafy's rule crumbles.
Some Western officials say there is scattered intelligence indicating that weapons stolen from Col Gadafy's stockpiles may have made their way to insurgents or militants in nearby countries, such as Niger, and North African nations.
The officials said they were much more worried about leakage of conventional weapons from Libyan arsenals than they were about possible theft or misuse of Libya's residual supplies of radioactive materials and chemical agents.
Of particular concern is the possibility that some of Col Gadafy's surface-to-air missiles, also known as Manpads (Man-Portable Air Defence Systems), which could be used to attack airliners, might fall into the hands of militants.
"They are very dangerous, unstable weapons, and if they fall into the wrong hands, they can be extremely disruptive, as we've seen around the world," Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said today .
Reuters