Cairo: A senior Libyan official said he is resigning from his post, the second high-profile defection from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in as many days.
Ali Abdul Salam Al Treki is a former foreign minister and had been named to represent Libya at the UN after a wave of defections early in the uprising.
But he said in a statement posted on Thursday on several opposition websites that he’s decided to resign that post.
The announcement comes a day after Libyan Foreign Minister Mousa Koussa flew to England and told the British government he was resigning as well.
The defections are a sign the regime is cracking at the highest levels and give a boost to Libyan revolutionaries after a string of military setbacks in the east.
A top Libyan diplomat now supporting the opposition also said most high ranking officials are trying to defect but are under tight security and have difficulty leaving the country.
“This is a big blow to the regime,” Ebrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s former deputy ambassador to the UN, said. He said the mission had been waiting for about 10 days for Al Treki to defect. Treki announced his defection yesterday in Cairo, he added.
Al Jazeera television also said yesterday that “a number of figures” close to Gaddafi were leaving the country for neighbouring Tunis. Al Jazeera did not give further details nor any names.
The new setbacks for Gaddafi came on Thursday as his forces bombarded a rag-tag rebel army and Nato ruled out providing weapons to the rebels.
A day after Gaddafi’s forces overran the key oil hub Ras Lanuf and neighbouring villages, the frontline ebbed and flowed on the outskirts of Brega, about 800 kilometres from the capital Tripoli.
But as a debate raged over whether western powers should arm the insurgents, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Stockholm that such a move was beyond the scope of the alliance. “We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm people,” Rasmussen told reporters.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan added weight to the Nato decision saying arming rebels would “create a different situation” in Libya during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in London.
The Libyan government confirmed Koussa’s “resignation” and said he was allowed to leave the country for medical treatment in Tunisia. “Koussa asked for permission to seek medical care in Tunisia,” spokesman Mousa Ebrahim told a news conference, adding that “permission was granted”.
The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that the US and Britain had inserted covert intelligence agents into Libya to make contact with rebels and to gather data to guide coalition air strikes.
— With inputs from agencies
