US continues to maintain contact with Libyan Opposition

The United States continues to maintain contacts with the Libyan Opposition as the US-led coalition forces for the second day in succession pounded air strikes against forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

“We continue to maintain contact, to talk to the Libyan Opposition. The Secretary (of State) was in Paris on Saturday.

Those communications continue. We’re also in touch with them in Benghazi and elsewhere,” the State Department spokesman, Mr Mark Toner, said.

The contact with the Libyan Opposition, he said, is being maintained at several different levels, he said, but was quick to add that there has been no additional meeting between the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, and the Libyan Opposition after they met in Egypt last Tuesday.

Talks with the Opposition at this point of time are more broad-based and has been talking to a cross section of the Libyan Opposition through a variety of channels.

“We don’t have eyes and ears on the ground in some of these places (in Libya), so we’re sharing information but also getting their impressions of what’s happening.

And obviously, right now the focus is on the military operation underway in support of UN Security Council Resolution 1973. The immediate goals of that are to stop the fighting, to force Gaddafi into a ceasefire, and to provide humanitarian assistance. So that’s the focus of our conversations right now,” Mr Toner said.

US, he said, has made clear that in the long term it doesn’t see Mr Gaddafi as a legitimate ruler and he should step down.

“We are going to, in the long term; continue to apply pressure on him and his associates,” he said.

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