Kadhafi son says Tripoli negotiating with France
Released on - Monday,11 July , 2011 -14:04
Tripoli is negotiating a way out of the Libyan crisis with France not with its rebel foes, the son of embattled Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said in an interview published Monday.
Seif Al-Islam also cited intelligence reports indicating that France is sending airborne troops to western Libya to fight alongside the rebels and attack Tripoli.
"We are in fact holding real negotiations with France and not with the rebels," he said during the interview with the Algerian daily El Khabar conducted in the Libyan capital late Saturday.
He added that Tripoli had received a "clear message" from Paris through a special envoy who met with the French president.
Seif Al-Islam said French President Nicolas Sarkozy bluntly told the Libyan emissary: "We created the (rebel) National Transitional Council and without France's backing, money and weapons, it would not exist."
Sarkozy made it clear that "he, not the rebels, was Tripoli's interlocutor," according to Kadhafi's son.
"The French officially informed us that they wanted to set up a transitional government in Libya. Sarkozy told a Libyan envoy: I have a list and those on it are the men of France," he said.
In Paris on Monday, a foreign ministry spokesman said France had made indirect contact with the Kadhafi regime, but denied reports that Paris has begun direct negotiations with Tripoli.
"France has always said it wants a political solution. There are no direct negotiations between France and Kadhafi's regime, but we pass it messages in liaison with the NTC and our allies," spokesman Bernard Valero said.
"These messages are simple and without ambiguity: any political solution must begin with Kadhafi's withdrawal from power and abandonment of any political role," he added.
On French support to the rebels, Kadhafi's son said: "According to intelligence reports, France is parachuting troops in western Libya to fight alongside the rebels and attack Tripoli."
He also said "French special forces deployed in western Libya had organised air weapons drops for the rebels."
Earlier this month, France said it supplied light arms including rifles and rocket launchers to the rebels for "self-defence" in line with a UN resolution.
However it later said the rebels, increasingly confident on the ground, no longer need the weapons drops.
Sunday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in Addis Ababa that Paris would work with the African Union to find "political solutions" to the Libya crisis, but insisted that the ouster of Kadhafi was a "key point".
Last week, African Union leaders meeting in Equatorial Guinea agreed on a framework accord proposed to the rival Libyan sides that calls for negotiations that would not involve Kadhafi and for the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
But the blueprint does not explicitly call on the Libyan leader to cede power as demanded by the rebellion based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Seif Al-Islam said Paris acting out of pique over Tripoli's failure "to honour all its commitments regarding the purchase of French Rafale aircraft and nuclear reactors."
"If they decide to bomb us it's because we were late in honouring trade commitments, it's illogical," he noted.
He also said Tripoli had begun an Egyptian-mediated dialogue in Cairo with Islamist groups, which he described as the "most influential in Benghazi".
"But the French stopped the Benghazi group from pursuing the talks," he added.
Sunday, a leading Libyan Islamist dissident, Ali Sallabi, told AFP that he had been mediating with the Kadhafi regime for three months to find a way out of the crisis, with the full knowledge of the rebellion.
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