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South African president says Gaddafi ready to implement AU roadmap

Arab World Materials 31 May 2011 02:58 (UTC +04:00)
Visiting South African President Jacob Zuma said on Monday that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is ready to carry out an African Union (AU) roadmap for solving the crisis in the North African country.
South African president says Gaddafi ready to implement AU roadmap

Visiting South African President Jacob Zuma said on Monday that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is ready to carry out an African Union (AU) roadmap for solving the crisis in the North African country, Xinhua reported.

"I can say that the Libyan leader is ready to implement what is in the roadmap by the AU," Zuma said at a press conference shortly before leaving Libyan capital Tripoli.

Zuma, during his several hours' visit to Tripoli, held what he described as a "detailed and long" talk with the embattled Libyan leader, during which he informed Gaddafi "recent steps and measures taken by the AU," and iterated an AU call for dialogue between the Libyans.

The South African president, who arrived earlier in the day and was greeted by Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abul Ati al-Obeidi at the Tripoli airport, said he came to meet Gaddafi as a member of a high-level committee formed by the AU on the Libya crisis.

The Libyan government has accepted the Union's initiative and the African roadmap, Zuma said, adding Gaddafi assured him "the importance of the ceasefire proposed by the AU on condition that NATO and (others) stop bombing and give the Libyan people a chance to solve their problems by themselves."

However, a source form the Benghazi-based rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) told Xinhua that the roadmap has not been represented to the NTC, but it is not expected to be a major step compared with the first one in April.

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