UK, US determined to continue air strikes in Libya until Gaddafi departs

While Western powers and some of their Arab allies are meeting in London to discuss military action in Libya and that country’s future, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron told the gathered parties there were better days ahead for Libya and that coalition forces will continue to impose ther no-fly zone over the North African country.

Today I believe should be about a new beginning for Libya - a future in which the people of Libya can determine their own destiny, free from violence and oppression, he said.

But the reason for being here today is that the Libyan people cannot reach that future on their own.

Foreign ministers from thirty-five countries, including seven Arab nations are at the summit, along with the secretary-generals of the UN, NATO and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Similarly, Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of state, told meeting attendants that air strikes by coalition military will continue until Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi complies with UN demands to cease violence against civilians.

She added that an alliance of global nations must put pressure on the Libyan government and “make clear to Gaddafi that he must go.”

Cameron has also called for the international community to deliver humanitarian aid to Libya once the current crisis is resolved.

When the fighting is over, we will need to put right the damage that Gaddafi has inflicted - repairing the hospitals ruined by shells, rebuilding the homes demolished by Gaddafi's tank rounds, and restoring the mosques and minarets smashed by his barbarity.”

Clinton and William Hague, the British foreign secretary, have already held talks with a Libyan rebel figure, Mahmoud Jibril, who has promised to hold free once elections if and when his group removes Gaddafi from power.

Prior to the conference, the Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said some nations will propose a comprehensive program to ending the civil war in Libya and establishing an exile for Gaddafi.

However, Hague of Britain said no one could guarantee Gaddafi a safe haven.

I'm not going to choose Colonel Gaddafi's retirement home, Hague told BBC radio. Where he goes, if he goes, is up to him and the people of Libya to determine and we will not necessarily be in control of that.

In a bizarre development, Gaddafi wrote a letter addressed to the London conference, asking for a military strikes to end and compared the NATO assaults to military campaigns of the German Nazis during World War II.

Khaled Kaim, Libya's deputy foreign minister in Libya, said foreign powers had no right to impose their will on the country.

Libya is an independent country with full sovereignty, he said.

The Libyan people are the only ones that have the right decide the country's future, and planning division of Libya or imposing a foreign political system is not accepted. We call upon Obama and the Western leaders to be peacemakers not warmongers, and not to push Libyans towards a civil war and more death and destruction.”

Meanwhile, Ahmed Khalifa, a spokesman for the rebel groups in Benghazi, said he hopes the London conference pressures Gaddafi to step down.

The national council rejects any negotiations with Gaddafi or his family ... No one at this [London] conference is defending Gaddafi, he has lost his legitimacy, he said.