PARIS - Libyan rebels rule out any role for Muammar Gaddafi in a future
government but could let him remain "in a remote part of Libya" as part
of a settlement, France's Le Figaro reported on Friday.
The
newspaper quoted Mahmoud Shammam, spokesman for the rebel National
Transitional Council (NTC), as confirming indirect talks were going on
with Gaddafi's side.
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"Yes,
these contacts are under way through intermediaries. But the talks are
never direct. They happen at times in South Africa, sometimes in Paris,
where Gaddafi has recently sent a representative to talk to us," Shammam
said.
"We consider that he has to resign himself to leaving or accept
retirement in a remote part of Libya. We have no objection to him
retreating to a Libyan oasis under international control," he added.
But he stressed: "Our conditions have not changed: Gaddafi and his
family members can absolutely not participate in a future government."
Gaddafi vowed in a state television broadcast this week to fight on
until the end. A rebel uprising backed since March by a NATO-led bombing
campaign has so far failed to dislodge him.
Shamman said rebels would talk with "any technocrat or Libyan official
who does not have any blood on their hands" over the creation of an
interim government with the task of organising elections.
A former foreign minister who has defected said on Thursday he believed
Gaddafi was negotiating asylum either elsewhere in Africa or in Belarus.
"I think that he will leave Libya in a few weeks," Abdurrahaman Shalgam
told Italy's Corriere della Sera TV.
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