The United States and France are united in their resolve to finish the job in Libya, US President Barack Obama said Friday as NATO reported that Moamer Gaddafi’s forces had laid landmines in Misrata.
In a dramatic shift, meanwhile, Russia joined the call of Western powers for Gaddafi to step down but the outgoing head of the Arab League Amer Mussa said he doubted the embattled leader would leave voluntarily.
“We are joined in our resolve to finish the job,” Obama said after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the G8 summit in the French resort of Deauville. But the US leader warned that the “UN mandate of civilian protection cannot be accomplished when Gaddafi remains in Libya directing his forces in acts of aggression against the Libyan people.”
G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States called in the draft of their final summit statement for Gaddafi to step down. “Gaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfil their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go,” the draft summit statement said.
Ahead of the summit, Russia — which has criticised the NATO air war on Gaddafi’s regime — was seen as reluctant to take a hard line, but it too toughened its stance on Libya during the Deauville meeting. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “Yes, we are ready to admit… he needs to go. We believe that Colonel Gaddafi has forfeited legitimacy due to his actions… indeed we need to help him go.” But the Arab League’s Mussa said there was a yawning gap between Tripoli and the rebel National Transitional Council on the question of Gaddafi, with the rebels demanding he go immediately and the regime saving his exit for “later.”
“Knowing the man, I don’t think he’s going to step down,” he said.
A Western diplomat meanwhile said Gaddafi has become increasingly paranoid about NATO air strikes and that he “appears to be moving from hospital to hospital, spending each night in a different one.”
