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UN council negotiating no-fly resolution

17 March 2011 04:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Security Council supporters of a no-fly zone over Libya tried Wednesday to persuade reluctant members of the U.N.’s most powerful body to back a resolution aimed at preventing Moammar Gadhafi’s planes from conducting aerial attacks on the Libyan people, APA reports quoting â€œAssociated Pressâ€.
The hesitation among some council members over a no-fly zone was immediately apparent after the proposed resolution was introduced Tuesday afternoon in the 15-member Security Council.
While Russia and Germany expressed doubts, France pushed for rapid action with Foreign Minister Alain Juppe saying in Paris that several Arab countries have pledged to participate in possible military action in the North African country.
The council met behind closed doors late Wednesday morning to continue discussions of the draft resolution.
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said supporters would go over the text "paragraph by paragraph" because members had "a number of questions about the text."
Lebanese Ambassador Nawaf Salam said he would urge council members "to move swiftly" amid reports that Libyan government troops would soon focus on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Salam said because Libyan diplomats at the U.N. had asked for a no-fly zone, and the Arab League had approved such a flight ban, "it is not foreign intervention, it is international legality."
Juppe wrote on his blog Wednesday that France and Britain have sought targeted air strikes for two weeks and said two conditions are necessary: a Security Council mandate for such force and "effective" participation by Arab states. "Several Arab countries assured us that they will participate," Juppe wrote, without elaborating.
Salam mentioned Juppe’s statement but did not say which Arab states the foreign minister may have been referring to.
U.S. mission spokesman Mark Kornblau would not say if the United States would back a flight ban, but said American diplomats were "actively engaged on the text" of the resolution as instructed by President Obama during a national security council meeting on Tuesday.
"We are hoping to focus the efforts of the international community on actions that will a have a real influence on events," Kornblau said without elaborating.
Obama and his top national security aides have been cautious with calls for a no-fly zone, which the Pentagon has described as a step tantamount to war. The U.S. fears further straining its already stretched military and getting entangled in an expensive and messy conflict.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was urging all sides in Libya to accept an immediate cease-fire. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Wednesday that Ban "is gravely concerned about the increasing military escalation by government forces, which include indications of an assault on the city of Benghazi."
The U.N. chief warned that "a campaign to bombard such an urban center would massively place civilian lives at risk," Nesirky said.
The latest push for a ban on flights in Libya came as Gadhafi’s forces intensified offensives in the east and the west Wednesday with relentless shelling aimed at routing rebel holdouts.
Rebels braced for a possible attack on the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion was born a month ago. Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, warned rebels that government troops were closing in on Benghazi and urged them to leave the country.
"Within 48 hours everything will be finished," he said in an interview with Lyon, France-based EuroNews television.
Colombian Ambassador Nestor Osorio said Wednesday his country "very much supported" efforts to halt violence against Libyan civilians but still had questions about the details of a possible no-fly zone.
Other ambassadors said issues to be clarified included whether the ban would apply to all flights countrywide, and what countries would contribute planes and other assets to enforce it.
France and Britain failed to win support for a no-fly zone during a two-day meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Paris earlier Tuesday and the G-8’s final communique did not mention a flight ban. It instead warned of unspecified "dire consequences" if Gadhafi did not honor the Libyan people’s claim to basic rights, freedom of expression, and representative government.
Lebanon’s Salam said Tuesday the section on the no-fly zone was drafted in consultation with Libya’s U.N. diplomats, who have denounced Gadhafi and back opposition forces. Salam said Britain introduced another section on "the strengthening and widening of sanctions" on Libya.
The Arab League called Saturday on the U.N. "to shoulder its responsibility ... to impose a no-fly zone over the movement of Libyan military planes and to create safe zones in the places vulnerable to airstrikes."
The Security Council on Feb. 26 imposed an arms embargo on Libya and ordered all countries to freeze assets and ban travel for Gadhafi and some close associates. It also referred the regime’s deadly crackdown on protesters to the International Criminal Court, for an investigation of possible crimes against humanity.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the G-8 that his country wants more details and clarity from the Arab League about its proposals for Libya before approving any military intervention, and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said his country was "very skeptical" about military action.