A UN envoy will seek to persuade warring parties in Libya to accept a plan that envisages a cease-fire and a power-sharing government, but with no role for Muammar Qadhafi, a European diplomat said. The diplomat said the informal proposals would be canvassed by the special UN envoy to Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, who has met both government and rebels several times.
Khatib, a Jordanian senator, told Reuters in Amman he hoped both sides would accept his ideas. "The UN is exerting very serious efforts to create a political process that has two pillars; one is an agreement on a cease-fire and simultaneously an agreement on setting up a mechanism to manage the transitional period," he said. He did not go into the details of that mechanism.
In public, the Libyan leader remained firm, telling supporters he would never countenance talks with the rebels who rose up in February to try to end his 41-year one-man rule.
"There will be no talks between me and them until Judgement Day," Qadhafi told a crowd of thousands in his home town of Sirte in a remotely delivered audio message on Thursday.
"They need to talk with the Libyan people ... and they will respond to them."
He has, however, said he welcomes talks with Western powers, with no preconditions. But Washington and Paris say they have given his officials the same simple message: Qadhafi must go.
Qadhafi has stepped up his defiant rhetoric amid persistent reports of talks. Pro-government rallies are being shown almost daily on state television, perhaps a reminder to outsiders that he can still command considerable support.
State television said Qadhafi would make another speech on Saturday, this time addressed to Egyptians on the anniversary of their revolution - not this year's, which toppled President Hosni Mubarak, but pan-Arabist Gamal Abdel-Nasser's in 1959.
The rebels seem unlikely to quickly unseat Qadhafi, who came to power himself as a young revolutionary influenced by Nasser, despite months of backing from Nato air strikes, authorised under a UN resolution to protect civilians. Rebel foreign spokesman Ali Essawi said Mansour Daw, a key aide to Qadhafi, had been wounded in a rebel rocket attack on a meeting of Qadhafi's inner circle in Tripoli on Thursday.