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PARIS: The United States, Britain and France are thinking beyond the current UN resolution authorising action to protect Libyan civilians and now seek regime change, France's defence minister said on Friday.
Speaking after the leaders of the main Western allies declared that it would be "unthinkable" for Muammar Qadhafi to remain in power, Gerard Longuet admitted that this went beyond the terms of their current UN mandate.
Asked on LCI television whether, in pushing for Qadhafi’s overthrow, the coalition risked "moving beyond the UN resolution," Longuet said, "Resolution 1973? Certainly. It does not address the future of Qadhafi. But I think that when three great powers say the same thing, it's important for the United Nations, and perhaps one day the Security Council will make another resolution."
On Thursday, differences between world powers over how to deal with the Libyan crisis began to widen when the BRICS group -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- urged that "the use of force should be avoided." Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev went further, arguing that UN Security Council Resolution 1973 did not authorise military action of the kind being carried out in Libya by attack jets from NATO and some Arab countries.
For their part, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, US President Barack Obama and Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron penned a joint op-ed warning that military action would not halt until Qadhafi falls.
Longuet brushed aside this widening divide in the international community, arguing that Russia, China and Brazil "will naturally drag their feet."
"But which of the great countries can accept that that a head of state can resolve his problems in training cannon fire on his own population? No great power can accept that," he argued.
"I'd like to see, alongside military action, a political opening so that Libyans can come together to imagine for themselves a future without Qadhafi."
