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Arab League Asks for Security Council Action Against Libya

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today stated that the Arab League has asked for security council actions against one of its members which is Libya.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about Libya and the UN action you talked about in a couple of your interviews today? Yesterday, the G-8 seemed to be at an impasse. Now, you're talking about new urgency and new efforts at the UN.
What's changed in the last few days?

Secretary Clinton: Well, Steven, I think that the G-8 said that it would support going back to the Security Council, and that is exactly what is happening. The turning point was really the Arab League statement on Saturday. That was an extraordinary statement in which the Arab League asked for Security Council action against one of its own members.

So as we speak, there is intense negotiation occurring in New York over the terms of a resolution that would include a range of actions that the international community could take, and which is exploring the details of what Arab leadership and participation in the international efforts would be. So I don't want to prejudge the outcome, but I think many countries that had a negative view about taking any action began to reconsider that following the Arab League statement.

Question: And so we - all right. I wanted to follow-up on Libya just for a second. You were talking about the no-fly zone and you had also tried the sanctions - closing the embassy, the revoking - visas. What's plan, I guess, (e) now when there is no longer any opposition to support?

Secretary Clinton: Well, I'm not prepared to say that there will not be. I think that there is a sense of urgency. Obviously, we're all seeing that in real time occur. But we are moving as rapidly as we can in New York to see whether we can get additional authorization for the international community to look at a broad range of actions - not just a no-fly zone, but other actions as well. We won't know until there's an actual vote. We're hoping that will be no later than tomorrow. And then we'll see what that message means to Qadhafi and his regime, and what it means in terms of support and encouragement to the opposition.

When I met with one of the key leaders of the opposition, Mr. Jibril in Paris, he understood the importance of sending a message to Qadhafi, and that is part of what we're trying to do by working so hard to get consensus in the Security Council.

Source: U.S. Department of State