A SENIOR Libyan opposition figure said yesterday that Italy has agreed to send weapons to the under-equipped rebel forces, in an apparent serious breach of the United Nations arms embargo.
If confirmed by Rome, the weapons shipments are likely to cause consternation at the UN where China and Russia have already expressed doubts about whether Nato is stretching the no-fly zone mandate.
Vice-president of the Transitional National Council, Abdul Hafeez Ghoga, said a deal has been agreed with the Italian government to provide weapons, which would be paid for from international donor funds pledged at a conference in the Italian capital earlier this week.
“Italy agreed to send us weapons and we will receive the weapons within days. We still have ongoing negotiations with France to send us arms too,” he said in an interview. “We will pay for the arms from the money we requested in Rome.”
He claimed the weapons deliveries were not a breach of the arms embargo agreed by the UN Security Council. “The resolution 1973 clearly states that we can receive arms to defend ourselves.”
In fact, the UN resolution enforcing an arms embargo, passed in February, specifically states that no weapons, training or military equipment can be sent to Libya either for government or opposition forces, and a similar arms embargo has been agreed by the European Union.
A force of a dozen Nato ships is patrolling the Libyan coast to enforce the UN resolution. If Italy makes such a delivery it is likely to infuriate China and Russia, two Security Council nations that have already expressed concern that Nato’s bombing of Muammar Gadafy’s forces may go beyond the need to impose a no-fly zone to protect rebel civilians.
International donors may also object to Mr Ghoga’s insistence that the weapons will be paid for with money pledged as standby loans and assistance grants at the Rome conference.
The money has been clearly earmarked for humanitarian and economic uses and donors may seek to block any use of such finance for arms.
However, the US has already said there is room within the UN resolutions to send weapons to the rebels, while denying it has itself done so. In March US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that the phrase “all necessary means” in the UN’s no-fly zone resolution in March meant that, notwithstanding the earlier arms embargo, there “could be a legitimate transfer of arms if a country should choose to do that”.
At the time her comments were echoed by British prime minister David Cameron, who said government lawyers were studying whether military assistance could be given without breaching the resolution. The UK has also said it has no plans to send such assistance.
A western diplomat said this week that there was concern that if the arms embargo was relaxed, Libya would be free to import weapons of its own, risking a further escalation of the war.