Italy Recognizes Libyan Rebel Govt

The Washington Post reports:

TRIPOLI, Libya — Rebels fighting government forces in eastern Libya were bolstered on Monday by new diplomatic recognition and gains on the battlefield as a bid by the government to resolve the country’s crisis by replacing Moammar Gaddafi with one of his sons appeared to fizzle amid international skepticism.

Italy became the third country after France and Qatar to recognize the opposition Transitional National Council as Libya’s legitimate government, and Kuwait said it expected to follow suit in the coming days.

Acting Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi arrived in Turkey for talks with its government, just a day after he delivered a message from Gaddafi to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Athens.

Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, have said that they want to listen to proposals from both sides on a way to end the violence. Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas said after meeting with Obeidi that “there is mobility, and there is a chance, albeit small, for a politico-diplomatic solution.”

But Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said the proposals presented by Obeidi in Greece to end the crisis were “not credible.” Among the cease-fire proposals Obeidi is thought to have transmitted was one calling for Gaddafi to turn control of western Libya over to his son Saif al-Islam, an option that Frattini dismissed.

“Any solution for the future of Libya has a precondition: that Gaddafi’s regime leaves . . . that Gaddafi himself and the family leave the country,” Frattini told reporters after meeting in Rome on Monday with Ali al-Essawi, the rebel council’s foreign policy representative.

Rebel officials in Benghazi also rejected the proposal. “After the massacres they have committed .?.?. I don’t think it’s even conceivable” that the rebels would accept Gaddafi’s sons, said opposition spokesman Mustafa Gheriani.

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