Downing Street Says

» Thursday, May 5, 2011

Libya

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that we should fund the rebels in Libya, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that the Foreign Secretary was at the Libya Contact Group in Rome today and we should wait for the outcome of those talks. They would be discussing various issues including actions to counter arms smuggling; mercenaries and the broadcasting of Libyan State TV; travel bans; asset freezes; steps to prevent the export of crude oil, and the importing of refined products to cut Gaddafi’s finances further and inhibit his military action.

Put that all those things sounded rather familiar, the PMS said that as we had seen today we had upped diplomatic pressure by expelling two Libyan diplomats, and we had to keep up the military and economic pressure. Part of today’s talks was to see what more could be done.

Asked for the Prime Minister’s view on funding the rebels, the PMS said that all these issues would be discussed at the meeting today and we should wait for the outcome of those talks. The Prime Minister’s view was that we wanted to protect the civilian population in Libya and do as much as possible in order to implement UN Security Resolution 1973.

Put that funding mechanisms were already in place to help the rebels, the PMS said that we were looking at a way for the Transitional National Council to manage revenue and also to assist with financial short-term requirements, which allowed partners to provide grants and loans. We were not planning to contribute at present as we had made a fairly substantial contribution towards aid to help the humanitarian effort.

Asked what the cost of the war in Libya was, the PMS referred the journalist to the Treasury.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

May 2011

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

« Apr

Jun »

» Thursday, May 5, 2011

Libya

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries