Italy's foreign minister said Libya's uprising had approached a turning point with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's rule coming to an end, and that the country sought an immediate ceasefire in Libya after Gadhafi's fall.
"Four months after the uprising in Libya, we are coming to a turning point: Gadhafi's rule is coming to an end," Franco Frattini said in a speech at the third meeting of the so-called contact group on Libya.
"Our priority is an effective ceasefire following Gadhafi's exit,"
Frattini said at the meeting hosted in the U.A.E. capital of Abu Dhabi. Arab and Western leaders gathered at the meeting said they were committed to working out legal mechanisms to help Libya's National Transitional Council receive funds from frozen Libyan assets worldwide. They also said they waited to hear a political plan from Libya's rebel leaders for a "post conflict" future.
The Council is being represented at the Abu Dhabi meeting by the rebels' de facto foreign minister Mahmoud Jibril, among other officials including finance and oil minister Ali Tarhouni. Tarhouni earlier Thursday appealed for urgent financial commitments, and said the meeting would be a failure if none were secured.
A spokesperson for Italy's foreign minister, Maurizio Massari, separately said the meeting would focus on making sure funds flow to the Transitional Council in coming weeks.
Italy has committed between EUR300 million and EUR400 million in loan and fuel products to Libya, Massari said. Libya's rebel officials said they hoped to seal a deal to import fuel from Italy.
"The [Transitional Council] is telling us that if financial help from the international community doesn't come soon, they are facing severe problems, also [with] legitimacy vis-??-vis the people," he said.
Besides approving a way for individual nations to provide loans to the Council-under a mechanism announced at a meeting in Rome in May--the meeting sought to reach an agreement on unfreezing Libyan assets, he added.
Italy was also keen to discuss securing an "inclusive political process" for Libya as an alternative to Gadhafi's regime. "The alternative could only be a very inclusive political process of national reconciliation including all the components of Libyan society," Massari said.
"We expect the [Council] to come out with a more detailed roadmap on how they intend to manage this political transition for Libya after Gadhafi," he added.
Massari said the issue of sending ground troops into Libya wasn't on Thursday's agenda, and has not been on the international agenda more broadly.
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