UN to help post-conflict Libya: official

UNITED NATIONS - UN under-secretary-general for political affairs B. Lynn Pascoe said here on Thursday that the United Nations will assist Libya at the directives of its new government after the current conflict in the North African nation has come to a close.

"One thing that the National Transitional Council (NTC) has made very clear is they expect the UN to play a strong role in the post-conflict period," Pascoe told reporters.

The months-long conflict between the Muammar Gadhafi's Libyan government and the rebels under the NTC appears to be nearing a close as rebel forces have overrun Tripoli and the whereabouts of Gadhafi remain unknown.

Pascoe said that the UN's future activities in a post-conflict Libya depend on requests from the Libyan people and new Libyan authorities.

"Let me state first that any process will be a Libyan-led one," he said. "What we are doing is trying to help them. We are not imposing or coming with our own ideas."

According to Pascoe, Ian Martin, the UN special advisor dealing with post-conflict planning in Libya as well as Abdel-Elah Al Khatib, UN special envoy to Libya have been engaged in discussions about the country's future.

Martin is currently in Istanbul, Turkey to meet with a contact group on Libya.

Pascoe said that Martin has been "in charge of the process for the secretary-general trying to look at the issues that are out there, ways that we may be helpful, and things that we could do to help a new government get established and carry through with the kind of free and open democracy that they want and that we want."

Pascoe said that there are many areas where the UN could support Libya, for example, on the political side on the establishment of a government, on the development of accountable institutions, reconciliation issues.

The UN's expertise on security could also be quite helpful, though there are currently no plans to deploy UN peacekeepers to the country, Pascoe explained.

"We also know some things about security issues in terms of dealing with disarmament, dealing with the control of anti mines, with unexplored ordinance," he said. "There is a whole range of issues where you know that we have been quite busy down through the years and have had a lot of involvement."

Addressing concerns about the movement of arms around Libya and across borders, Pascoe pointed out that Security Council Resolution 1973, passed in March, authorized measures to enforce an arms embargo on the country.

"We have from the first been talking about the possibility of some arms monitors that would be there, as you will recall this was part of the Resolution 1973," he told reporters. "So we have people and we can be helpful if they want our help."

He added that the UN has no plans to deploy peacekeepers to the country at the moment.

Discussion of Libya will continue in the Security Council with a new draft resolution designed to undo the asset freeze imposed on the Gadhafi regime through Security Council Resolution 1970, passed in February. The unfrozen assets would be used to help the Libyan people.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is also due to hold a meeting on the situation in Libya here on Friday that will include the European Union (EU), African Union (AU), League of Arab States, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

"We'll have a good discussion," said Pascoe.