US politico in Libya to meet Kadhafi, seek deal

A Libyan rebel fighter scans the horizon in the desert © AFP Odd Andersen

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A former US lawmaker with prior dealings with Moamer Kadhafi was in Tripoli Wednesday on a private mission seeking a peace deal that would include the departure of the Libyan strongman.

Curt Weldon, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania from 1987 to 2007, said in a New York Times column that he was in Libya “as the leader of a small private delegation, at the invitation of Colonel Kadhafi’s chief of staff and with the knowledge of the Obama administration and members of Congress from both parties.”

“Our purpose is to meet with Colonel Kadhafi today and persuade him to step aside,” he said.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Weldon “did inform us of his plans to travel” to Libya, but added “he’s not there on our behalf” and “is not carrying a message” from US President Barack Obama’s administration.

“I don’t know if it’s helpful or unhelpful,” Toner told reporters when queried about the impact of his trip. “He’s not representing the US government.”

Weldon, who in 2004 traveled to Libya as the head of a bipartisan congressional delegation to express support for Kadhafi’s decision to give up his country’s nuclear weapons, wrote that “there is no question that America should play a critical role in helping the Libyans build a new government.”

He argued that both Obama and former US president George W. Bush failed to follow up on promises made in 2004 to help Libya with reforms.

Weldon said he would seek “an immediate United Nations-monitored cease-fire, with the Libyan army withdrawing from contested cities and rebel forces ending attempts to advance.”

“The world agrees that Colonel Kadhafi must go, even though no one has a plan, a foundation for civil society has not been constructed and we are not even sure whom we should trust. But in the meantime, the people of Libya deserve more than bombs.”

The mission comes as the key Western powers involved in the Libyan conflict were throwing their energies into negotiating a solution, as the war between government and rebel forces dug deeper into a stalemate.

The United States, France and Britain are reaching out to both the rebels and, indirectly, to officials in Kadhafi’s regime, looking for a way to bring them together in talks, officials for both sides said.

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license