Members of the international community are free to arm Libyan rebels fighting Moamer Gaddafi, but doing so would be a "manifest violation" of a United Nations-mandated weapon embargo, Italy's top diplomat at NATO said Wednesday, DPA reported.
At an international conference in London on Tuesday, the United States and France were among the nations that suggested the possibility of supplying arms to the anti-Gaddafi insurgency.
"In this case, countries would have to accept responsibility for a manifest violation of a UN resolution," Italian ambassador Riccardo Sessa told a news briefing in Brussels.
Sessa insisted that arming the rebels "is not being talked about" within the structures of the Western military alliance "and is not within the competences of NATO."