NATO Reaffirms Libya Group’s Call for Qadhafi to Step Down

18 April 2011

NATO foreign ministers and their operational partners for military acitivies in Libya reaffirmed the Libya Contact Group's call for Qadhafi to step down.

Foreign ministers representing the 28 members of NATO met in Berlin April 14–15 and endorsed the Libya Contact Group’s April 13 call for Muammar Qadhafi to immediately step down from power and for his supporters to end their attacks on Libyan civilians.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Philip Gordon told reporters in Washington April 18 that the NATO meeting served to reaffirm and follow up on the contact group’s statement.

The contact group, a coalition of Arab and non-Arab representatives that is leading international efforts to map Libya’s future, met in Doha, Qatar, and demanded “an immediate end to all attacks against civilians, and for Qadhafi and his regime to pull back all regime forces from Libyan cities they have forcibly entered, occupied or besieged.”

The group’s statement said Qadhafi’s continued presence in Libya “would threaten any resolution of the crisis” and it called on “all Libyans who wanted to see a process of political transition to urge Qadhafi to step down.”

In Berlin, Gordon said, NATO allies “agreed very specifically to maintain a high operational tempo against legitimate targets, and to exert this pressure as long as necessary” until they have met their military objectives of ending the threat of attacks against Libyan civilians; having pro-Qadhafi forces withdraw to their bases; and allowing humanitarian organizations to have immediate access to the Libyan people.

NATO assumed command from the United States of the mission to enforce a no-fly zone over the country and protect Libyan civilians, as authorized by the United Nations and the Arab League.

Gordon said the United States “was very much in the lead” during the initial phase of the campaign, using its air assets and cruise missiles against Qadhafi’s air-defense systems, but said President Obama and other U.S. officials “made clear from the start that after the initial phase of the campaign … eventually the United States was going to transition to NATO and focus its contributions on our unique capabilities: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, [and] air refueling.”

The United States is continuing to do “the bulk” of that mission since the March 31 handover, he said.

“That is what we said we would do in advance. That is exactly what we are doing,” he said. The Obama administration is confident that its NATO allies and its Arab and other partners in the campaign have “the capabilities to successfully conduct the rest of that operation.”

Gordon said the United States and its NATO allies “will continue to strive to make sure NATO is acting as effectively and efficiently as possible,” including adapting to changes in tactics used by Qadhafi’s forces.

According to an April 15 NATO communiqué at the conclusion of the meeting in Berlin, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the organization and its Arab and other operational partners are in agreement over the military objectives in Libya.

“NATO is absolutely determined to continue its operation for as long as there is a threat against Libyan civilians, and it is impossible to imagine that threat [will] disappear with Qadhafi in power,” Rasmussen said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said April 15 that she and the other NATO foreign ministers had strongly endorsed the Libya Contact Group’s statement calling on Qadhafi to leave power. “A democratic transition must take place that reflects the will of the Libyan people,” she said.

“I think the bottom line is that here at NATO we achieved a solid and sustainable consensus on our objectives and what it will take to achieve them,” Clinton said.

The full statement of the Libya Contact Group can be found on the website of the United Kingdom’s embassy in Tripoli.