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Gadhafi envoy in Europe to seek an end to crisis
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
Libyan rebels chant slogans, flash "V" signs and wave guns during a welcome reception for fellow injured Libyans on board the Turkish ship Ankara, carrying 250 wounded from Misrata, as it enters the port of Benghazi, Libya Sunday, April 3, 2011. Libyan rebels want to install a parliamentary democracy in place of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi, one of their top leaders said Sunday, dismissing Western fears that their movement could be hijacked by Islamic extremists. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Associated Press
BENGHAZI, Libya
An envoy of Moammar Gadhafi told Greece’s prime minister Sunday that the Libyan leader was seeking a way out of his country’s crisis two weeks after his government’s attacks to put down a rebellion drew international airstrikes, Greek officials said.
Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi, a former Libyan prime minister who has served as a Gadhafi envoy during the crisis, will travel next to Turkey and Malta in a sign that Gadhafi’s regime may be softening its hard line in the face of the sustained attacks.
“From the Libyan envoy’s comments it appears that the regime is seeking a solution,” Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas said in a statement after the meeting in Athens.
The foreign minister said the Greek side stressed the international community’s call for Libya to comply with the U.N. resolution that authorized the airstrikes and demanded Gadhafi and the rebels end hostilities.
The message, Droutsas said, was: “Full respect and implementation of the United Nations decisions, an immediate cease-fire, an end to violence and hostilities, particularly against the civilian population of Libya.”
Gadhafi’s government has declared several cease-fires but has not abided by them.
Few other details of the Athens talks were released publically.
On Friday, the Libyan envoy had said Gadhafi’s government was attempting to hold talks with the U.S., Britain and France in an effort to halt the international airstrikes that began March 19 and which have pounded Libya’s troops and armor and grounded its air force.
Gadhafi’s superior forces had been close to taking the rebel capital of Benghazi in eastern Libya before the international military campaign.
Rebel forces made up of defected army units and armed civilians have since seized much of Libya’s eastern coast, but have been unable to push westward toward the capital, Tripoli.
On Sunday, Gadhafi’s forces pressed on with attacks against Misrata, the last key city in the western half of the country still largely under rebel control despite a weeks- long assault.
A Turkish ship carrying 250 wounded from Misrata docked in Benghazi on Sunday.