•  doha, qatar
• Thursday, July 28, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Britain has officially recognised Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government, and asked all diplomats belonging to Muammar Gaddafi's government to leave the United Kingdom.

William Hague, the UK foreign secretary, said on Wednesday that Britain was unfreezing 150 million dollars of Libyan oil assets to help the National Transitional Council, which the country now recognises as 'the sole governmental authority in Libya'.

'We will deal with the National Transitional Council on the same basis as other governments around the world,' Hague said. 'In line with this decision, we summoned the Libyan charge d'affaires here to the foreign office this morning and informed him that he and other regime diplomats from the Gaddafi regime must now leave the United Kingdom.

'We no longer recognise them as the representatives of the Libyan government and we are inviting the Libyan National Transitional Council to appoint a new Libyan diplomatic envoy to take over the Libyan embassy in London.'

Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, in the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi, reported that the funds would be welcomed by NTC leaders, as they had been running dangerously low on funds. She said that if the funds were handed over to the oil company that Hague named in his statement, they could go towards repairing an oil pipeline to one of the east's largest oil fields, in Soriya.

Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the NTC, said in a press conference in Benghazi on Wednesday that the UK's decision 'gives us a political and economic boost'.

'This means Gaddafi and his followers are no longer legitimate,'' he said, while announcing that Libya's new ambassador to the UK would be Mahmud Nacua, who he described as a Libyan exile in Britain.

Britain's diplomatic moves implement a decision made at a Jul. 15 meeting in Istanbul, Turkey during which the U.S., Britain and 30 other nations recognised Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government.

Russia has criticised such moves as following a 'policy of isolation' and going beyond the U.N.'s mandate and taking sides in a civil war. Britain is one of the leading participants in the NATO campaign, but the government has been under pressure over its failure to remove Gaddafi from power.

It gave the current charge d'affaires and all eight remaining staff and their dependents three days to leave the UK, the foreign office said.

This week Hague said for the first time that Gaddafi might be able to remain in Libya, as long as he is not in power. He said that 'Gaddafi is going to have to abandon power, all military and civil responsibility', but 'what happens to Gaddafi is ultimately a question for the Libyans'. France and the U.S. have made similar statements.

On Wednesday, however, Mustafa Mohamed Abdel Jalil, the NTC's chief, said that the deadline for a proposal involving Gaddafi ceding power and remaining in Libya had expired.

'We made a proposal. The deadline has past. The proposal has expired,' Jalil said of the three-point offer during a press conference in Benghazi. Under the proposal, Gaddafi would relinquish all powers and would remain under 'close supervision' in a location of the 'Libyan people's' choosing, he said. The proposal marked a major shift from previous opposition demands that Gaddafi leave and be tried for war crimes in The Hague.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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