Gaddafi can't be forgiven after "massacres": ex-min

Former Libyan interior minister General Abdul Fattah Yunis, who resigned from his post and joined the revolutionaries in Benghazi, announced his rejection of granting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi amnesty if he leaves power.

“We cannot forgive Gaddafi after the massacres he has been committing against his people,” Yunis said in an interview with Al Arabiya Tuesday.

Yunis called upon the Arab League and the international community to take the necessary measures to impose a no-fly zone on Gaddafi’s militias that have launched non-stop bombing of Libyan cities.

On the other hand, former Libyan justice minister Mustapha Abdul Jalil, who now heads the Libyan interim council, said that indirect talks took place between revolutionaries and the regime.

“We did not have direct talks with the regime, but indirect negotiations took place through legal experts,” he told Al Arabiya.

Abdul Jalil added that Libyans might give up their demand that legal action be taken against Gaddafi in case he agrees to step down.

Members of the Libyan National Interim Council Mahmoud Jibril and Ali al-Essawi demanded in a meeting with French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Alain Juppé at the European Parliament in Strasbourg that the European Union recognizes the council as the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department announced that American diplomats, among them U.S. ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, met in the Egyptian capital Cairo with members of the interim government that calls for the ouster of the regime.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley stated that another round of talks might take place between the United States and Libyan opposition figures who currently reside in Tunisia.

Crowley called upon Gaddafi to resign and reiterated the option that he leaves the country after stepping down.


(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)