British Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Libya on Thursday for a visit with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a spokeswoman for his Downing Street office said. It was the leaders’ first visit to Libya since the start of an uprising strongly backed by French and British air power which forced Muammar Gaddafi from power last month.
Cameron landed in Tripoli with Foreign Secretary William Hague but Sarkozy travelled separately, the Downing Street spokeswoman said. A statement from Cameron’s office said he would meet senior leadership of the National Transitional Council, including Libya’s new interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil. “He is expected to announce a further package of UK assistance to support the Libyan-led process of transition to a free, democratic and inclusive Libya,” it said. Britain and France were two of the first countries to launch military action over Libya, alongside the United States, in March to enforce a UN resolution to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s forces.
NATO took over the campaign of aerial attacks a few days later. Britain will release £600 million ($950 million, 690 million euros) worth of Libyan assets to help the new Libyan leadership, Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman said Thursday.
“We’ll be making available around £600 million worth of the Libyan assets,” the spokesman told reporters in London as Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were given a rapturous welcome on a visit to Tripoli. “These were assets that were frozen by the previous UN resolutions,” the spokesman added. Billions of dollars of cash, property and other assets belonging to Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in the West were frozen in February under a UN Security Council resolution.
In Britain alone, around £12 billion assets were frozen this year after a Gaddafi launched a bloody crackdown against an ultimately successful rebellion. Britain has been pushing for a new Security Council resolution on unfreezing Libyan assets. Cameron’s spokesman said: “We are in discussions at the UN and we will be pushing for a new resolution at the UN Security Council tomorrow.” Cameron and Sarkozy are the most senior Western leaders to visit Libya since Gaddafi was overthrown.
Convoy zeroes in on Gaddafi hometown: A convoy of battle-hardened fighters headed for Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown Sirte in gruelling heat Thursday, confident of overcoming one of the strongman’s final pockets of resistance. Cheered on by residents who flashed victory signs and chanted Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), the troops loyal to the National Transitional Council massed early morning in Misrata and then rolled out of the port city. The convoy comprised of heavy artillery and pickup trucks loaded with machineguns, rocket launchers and Katyusha rockets.
The convoy split up at the desert town of Abu Qurin, from where one of its commanders said they would approach Sirte from three directions in a pincer movement. As they headed farther to the east, an AFP correspondent received unconfirmed reports that NATO struck a south-bound convoy of pro-Gaddafi armoured vehicles about 50 kilometres from Sirte.
While wary of mercenaries, the young men in the convoy expressed confidence of overcoming the pro-Gaddafi forces in Sirte thanks to their combat experience in the devastating, months-long battle for Misrata.
“We would prefer to settle things peacefully and not spill blood. “We are not like Kadhaf’s forces. We value every soul from our ranks or theirs.
“We have a goal which is freedom; they have nothing.”
The task of the forces loyal to Libya’s new rulers appeared to have been made easier as their advance was preceded by a series of NATO air strikes in and around Sirte.
