UN seeks deal to allow food, medicine into Libya

The United Nations is negotiating with Libya's government, rebels and Nato to stop fighting for up to three days to allow food and medical supplies to reach civilians, its envoy said on Wednesday. Panos Moumtzis, humanitarian co-ordinator for Libya, said he would also seek security guarantees for UN aid workers to reach the rebel-held city of Misrata and the Western Mountains in talks with authorities in the Libyan capital on Friday.
Misrata is a key battleground in the three-month-old war in which rebels fighting to topple Muammar Qadhafi have seized control of the oil-producing east of the country, aided by a Nato bombing campaign to enforce a UN mandate. The war is deadlocked on its main front but fighting flared again in the besieged port city in western Libya and seven people were killed, most of them rebel fighters, in clashes on Tuesday with government forces, a hospital doctor said.
Moumtzis said the pause could last one to three days. While not a formal cease-fire, it would allow for the evacuation of migrants, wounded and others wishing to leave areas riddled by fighting. "The humanitarian pause is driven by humanitarian principles and the need to be able to provide urgently needed life-saving assistance to the civilian population," he told a news conference, declining to give a target start date for the pause.
The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Tripoli on May 1 after its offices were ransacked on the day Libya said Qadhafi's youngest son and three grandchildren were killed in a Nato air strike. The war's diplomatic fallout intensified. Tunisia threatened to report Tripoli to the UN Security Council if it fired into Tunisian territory again, after government shells landed across the frontier near the Dehiba-Wazzin crossing on Tuesday.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, on Wednesday said Libya must abide by its agreements as a UN member and not dismiss international efforts to bring Qadhafi and others to justice. Moreno-Ocampo requested arrest warrants on Monday for Qadhafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi, who is Qadhafi's brother-in-law, on charges of crimes against humanity - a request Tripoli denounced. Libya freed US reporters Clare Gillis and James Foley, Spanish photographer Manu Brabo and another journalist on Wednesday, a Libyan government spokesman said.