Clinton to meet Libyan opposition in Paris: Libyan

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with a leading member of the Libyan opposition in Paris on Monday, according to the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations who defected.

The chief US diplomat will hold talks with Mahmoud Jibril, who is in charge of foreign affairs for the opposition National Council, former ambassador Abdel Rahman Shalgam told reporters on Friday.

Jibril was received on Thursday by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Clinton said the same day that she would meet with the Libyan opposition during her trip next week to France, Egypt and Tunisia. The United States has since agreed to name an envoy tasked with dealing specially with the opposition.

Speaking in Washington beside Ali Aujali, the Libyan ambassador to the United States who has also defected, Jibril said: "We are not diplomats now, we are freedom fighters."

The two men said they were received Friday at the Treasury Department, where they discussed the question of Libyan assets frozen under new US sanctions.

They also met at the State Department with Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.

"Our main priority is the no-fly zone," Aujali said, referring to opposition calls for US and NATO to use their warplanes to prevent Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi from using his air power to attack the opposition and civilians.

When asked to elaborate on what kind of US military aid the opposition was seeking, Aujali replied: "Anything but physical presence on our soil." (AFP)