The Libyan government said on Thursday it will send a representative to the next OPEC meeting to replace the top oil official who defected saying he had lost faith in the rule of Muammar Gaddafi.
Shokri Ghanem, who oversaw Libya’s
oil and gas sector, is the second most senior official to quit and rebels said
the defection showed that the end is nearing for Gaddafi after more
than four decades in power.
But a government spokesman in Tripoli played down the significance of Ghanem’s departure. “This is a country, a state, a government, not just one person,” Mussa Ibrahim told Reuters.
He said the government would be represented at the meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna on June 8. “I don’t have a name yet but we’ll have somebody,” he said. In rebel-held eastern Libya, an explosion damaged a hotel used by rebels and foreigners in Benghazi, wounding one person.
Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council in Benghazi, told Reuters the explosion outside Tibesti hotel was believed to have been caused by a hand grenade thrown in a “desperate attempt” by Gaddafi’s loyalists to sow terror.
Now in its fourth month, the Libyan conflict is deadlocked, with rebels unable to break out of their strongholds and advance towards Tripoli, where Gaddafi appears to be firmly entrenched.