“Let us negotiate with you, the countries that attack us.”
|||Tripoli, Libya - Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi said on Saturday he was willing to negotiate with Nato to bring an end to alliance airstrikes against his country, but rejected calls for him to leave.
“Libya is ready until this moment to enter a ceasefire, but a ceasefire cannot be from one side,” he said in a live speech on state TV.
Gaddafi said all parties involved in the conflict would have to sign up to one.
“Let us negotiate with you, the countries that attack us,” he said in a speech that lasted almost 90 minutes.
He also said that the Libyan people would not surrender if Nato powers were not interested in talks, and that his people were willing to die resisting the “terrorist” attacks.
Gaddafi made it clear, however, he would not bend to international demands to leave power after 41 years of rule.
“No one can persuade me to leave my country, and no one can tell me that I should not fight for my country,” he said.
Nato has been in command of the international military operation in Libya for just under five weeks, including airstrikes that are being used as part of the UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians.
This is not the first time the government has promised a ceasefire.
Earlier this month, the opposition Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC) said it would accept a ceasefire only if Gaddafi withdrew his forces from all of cities and gave Libyans greater freedoms.
The government at the time rejected the rebel's position as “crazy.”
On Friday, Libyan security forces in Tripoli fired on anti-Gaddafi protesters, activists said, in what were apparently the first demonstrations in weeks inside the capital.
Gaddafi's forces also used teargas to disperse the rallies, which broke out in Tripoli's Souk al-Jumaa and Tajura districts.
During the two months since rebels began fighting Gaddafi, regime opponents have fled the capital, where fear has reportedly kept people off the streets for several weeks. - Sapa-dpa
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/gaddafi-offers-ceasefire-1.1062930
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