FRANCE HAS denied claims it has changed its policy towards the Libyan conflict and is negotiating directly with the regime of Muammar Gadafy, but has called for political flexibility over the terms and timing of his departure.
The French foreign ministry said yesterday the Libyan leader must go, and insisted there were no direct negotiations with him, as claimed by his son.
The comments followed an interview in which French defence minister Gerard Longuet urged the rebels to talk to the government in Tripoli. “We have . . . asked them to speak to each other,” he told BFM TV on Sunday. “The position of the TNC [rebel Transitional National Council] is very far from other positions. Now, there will be a need to sit around a table.”
Asked if it was possible to hold talks if Col Gadafy had not left office, Mr Longuet replied: “He will be in another room in his palace, with another title.”
Representatives of the transitional council said there had been no change, and dismissed a claim by the leader’s son, Saif al-Islam, that Libya was negotiating with France.
Saif al-Islam told Algerian newspaper al-Khabar: "The truth is that we are negotiating with France and not with the rebels.
“Our envoy to [Nicolas] Sarkozy said that the French president was very clear and told him: ‘We created the [rebel] council, and without our support, and money, and our weapons, the council would have never existed.’ France said: ‘When we reach an agreement with you [Tripoli], we will force the council to cease fire’.”
Col Gadafy’s chief of staff, Bashir Saleh, reportedly met French officials in Paris recently. But foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said yesterday: “France supports a political solution, as it has always said. There are no direct negotiations between France and the Gadafy regime, though we pass on messages together in consultation with the TNC.”
Guma el-Gamaty, a London-based spokesman for the TNC, also dismissed the Libyan claims. “It’s just rumours and speculation,” he said. “These are recycled ideas. Saif is a loose cannon . . . He is desperate. No one should take his statements seriously.”
British officials said there was now a new emphasis on finding a political exit from the crisis, an issue that is being quietly explored by the UN special envoy for Libya, the Jordanian Abdel-Ilah al-Khatib, who held talks in Tripoli over the weekend about “managing a transition”.
– (Guardian service)