Azerbaijan, Baku, April 19 /Trend, A.Tagiyeva/
If land operation on Libya is launched, the crisis in the country will only deepen, which could strengthen aggression from Muammar Gaddafi, said Javad Mahmoud al-Hamad, Chief of the Center for Middle East Studies.
"Presence of Western land forces in Libya would destabilize the situation in the country in full," al-Hamad said in a telephone conversation from Amman.
Axel Ponyatovski, Chief of the Foreign Relations Committee of the National Assembly of France, warned the NATO leadership that the international military operation on Libya would "be stuck" and would not produce fruits until the allies launched the phase of land operation.
"The use of airforce only, as dictated to us by the UN Security Council's Resolution 1973, has turned to be inefficient against moving targets, which are hard to detect and yet harder to be targeted," he said.
He said the Resolution 1973 assumes military operation on Libya only as a measure to cease fire in order to minimize the victims among civilians.
The document foresees neither the necessity of overthrowing the existing political regime in this country nor the opportunity of participants of the international operation to take the position of one of the opposing sides. In addition, the Resolution does not assume any form of occupation of the Libyan territory.
In the opinion of al-Hamad, the invasion of the coalition forces in the territory of Libya may lead to that the coalition troops will stay in the country for a long period.
The expert believes startup of land operation on Libya does not serve the interests of the opposition as the latter may split over the issue of military land operation.
"All the Libyan opposition needs is the weapons and humanitarian backing from the side of countries-participants of the operation," he said.
If the opposition needs military support, it would be more correct that not European armed forces, but neighboring Arab states provide such support, said al-Hamad.
Mass demonstrations urging resignation of Gaddafi, who has been ruling the country for more than 40 years, began in Libya in mid February and later on grew into armed confrontation between government forces and rebels. International organizations claim thousands of victims, but Libyan Government denies such reports.
On March 17, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution envisioning no-fly zone over Libya and opening the opportunity of foreign military intervention with the North African country.
The operation began on March 19. On March 31, the NATO Commandment took over the United Defender campaign. The NATO claims the aim of the operation is to provide weapons embargo, no-fly zone, and measures of protection of civilians.