Russia has called for negotiations between Libyan rebels and Muammar Gadafy's government as fears mount over food shortages in rebel-held territories.
Speaking in Kazakhstan, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the situation in Libya “must be brought into a political channel as swiftly as possible".
"It is necessary to utilise the services of the UN secretary-general's special envoy and the mediation proposals of the African Union in order to sit down and seek agreement without any conditions," Mr Lavrov said.
He suggested a resolution of the conflict would usher in a new government but that talks with Col Gadafy's government were unavoidable.
The result of dialogue "will be a new political system, but it is necessary to seek agreement also with those upon whom the prospects for calming the situation depends", Mr Lavrov said.
Russia says a Western-led coalition conducting air strikes in Libya is overstepping its UN mandate to protect civilians, and has vocally opposed foreign intervention in other conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.
Concern is rising over shortages of food and fuel in Libya's Western Mountains, where fear of attack threatens the rebels single supply route and at least one remote town is blockaded by Muammar Gadafy's forces.
Rebels control a chain of mountain-top towns on the western front of Libya's two-month-old conflict, linked by a single road running some 200km from the Tunisian border to within 150km of the capital, Tripoli.
But government troops hold the desert plains below, and the road is exposed at several low sections - a concern for aid agencies trying to enter rebel-held territory in defiance of the government.
There is particular concern for the remote mountain town of Yefran which lies outside rebel-held territory.
A Yefran resident who moved to the rebel-controlled town of Zintan at the outbreak of fighting said many women and children had already fled, but the men who stayed are surrounded on all sides by Gadafy forces, who are choking supplies of food and medicine.
The man, who declined to be named, told Reuters he had been part of a rebel operation last month that punctured government lines to briefly reach the town and bring several people out, but that communication had since been lost.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday it was increasingly concerned about access to food for people trapped by fighting in the region.
"We have not yet been able to reach the areas most affected by the fighting around Yefrin and Zintan in the Western Mountains," WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said. The supply route is now facing serious challenges due to insecurity in many of the areas, in addition to severe fuel shortages.
More than 40,000 people have left the region for Tunisia, leaving a number of towns populated almost entirely by men. Refugees have reported male relatives disappearing from towns in the plains controlled by government troops.
Reuters