Russia Seeks Cease-Fire in Libya

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 1 May 2011 09:56

MOSCOW - Russia on May 1 called for an immediate cease-fire in Libya and said it had "serious doubts" the West was not targeting Moammar Gadhafi and his family after Tripoli said the leader's son was killed.

Damage is shown at a home belonging to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi during a government-organized tour of Tripoli on May 1. The Libyan government said Gadhafi?s youngest son was killed in a NATO airstrike. (Mahmud Turkia / Agence France-Presse)

"The claims of the coalition members that strikes over Libya do not have the physical destruction of Moammar Gadhafi and members of his family as their goal cause serious doubts," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Reports of casualties among civilians are being received in Moscow with increasing concern," it added.

A NATO raid late April 30 killed Gadhafi's youngest son and three grandchildren, a Libyan government spokesman said .

The Libyan leader and his wife were in the building that came under attack but were not harmed, the spokesman said, calling the strike "a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country."

NATO said it had targeted a command and control center.

The Russian foreign ministry said the coalition's strikes over Tripoli and other cities had intensified in recent days.

It reeled off a series of non-military installations including premises of Libyan non-government organizations that it said had come under fire.

The ministry said this proved that Russia was right when it had warned that the "disproportionate use of force" and the exceeding of the U.N. mandate would lead to "harmful consequences and deaths of innocent people."

It called on the coalition to "cease fire immediately" and "begin a political settlement without any preliminary conditions."

Russia last month abstained from the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya, but later it accused the West of exceeding the U.N. mandate.

The U.N. resolution authorized the use of force in Libya to protect civilians from a bloody war sparked by a rebellion against Gadhafi's four decades of rule and his regime's efforts to suppress it.

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