NATO and EU ministers are to meet to lay out options to deal with Libya's Moammar Gaddafi as leaders ponder military and economic options to resolve the crisis in oil-rich Libya.
The meeting will bring together defense ministers, foreign ministers and prime ministers or presidents for talks March 10 and 11 that will shape the prospects for military intervention via a no-fly zone, humanitarian aid and economic props, AFP reports.
"The policy is getting him to go as soon as possible," said a senior EU diplomat of Colonel Moammar Gaddafi, the one-time pariah whose rehabilitation by Britain, France, Italy and others is now the subject of global hand-wringing.
"No one is expecting Kadhafi will melt away in the next few days, but we are developing a range of responses," added the source, who requested anonymity.
The stakes are high, with oil prices flying and the prospect of a flood of migrants crossing from north Africa into Europe uppermost in the minds of many. For the United States and its leading allies, surviving a political tightrope with the fast-changing Muslim world near tops the list. The EU's 27 foreign ministers start the ball rolling in mid-morning when they arrive for talks preparing a full summit of leaders the next day.
"Some think this could protect civilians from aerial bombardment, others fear risks in terms of how it would play with Arab public opinion," said a top EU official who asked not to be named.
On the headline initiative of enforcing a no-fly zone over a country vaster than restricted air exclusion areas over Iraq or the Balkans in past conflicts, "countries are divided" too over the operational input of a military engagement, added the source.
Washington "believes that NATO is the natural choice for any military action," but at the other end of the spectrum, while Turkey signed up to planning, Ankara has described the alliance going in as an "absurd" prospect.
In Paris a French diplomat said that "alongside Britain, we are working on what could be done without NATO. The sight of the NATO flag would be provocative."
