Tony Blair appeals to Colonel Gaddafi to step down

Denial: Tony Blair made the personal plea to Gaddafi in two telephone calls.
12 April 2012

Tony Blair made a personal plea to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urging him to step down from power, it has been revealed.

In an interview with The Times, the former prime minister confirmed he made two telephone calls to the embattled dictator asking him to stop the bloodshed, but said his requests were rebuked. He also claimed the embattled dictator was in "denial" about events in the North African state.

Mr Blair said: "I am not going to say any more than this - that what I asked him to do is consistent with the message from the international community and his message was the message he has given publicly. He was in denial that these things are going on.

"There is now one major strategic objective and the rest is a question of tactical decisions. The strategic objective is that there is a change in leadership in Libya with the minimum further bloodshed. Far too many people have died; there has been far too much violence."

Mr Blair, who spoke to Mr Gaddafi twice on Friday, continued: "The single most important thing is that this ends as quickly as possible with him standing aside and a new leadership taking over."

The Middle East peace envoy also defended his decision to bring Colonel Gaddafi back into the international fold, signing a deal in 2004 following Libya's climbdown over a programme to develop weapons of mass destruction.

He said: "Is it a good thing that Libya went from being a state sponsoring terrorism to a state co-operating in the fight against it? Surely the answer must be yes.

"Is it a good thing it went from being a state developing nuclear and chemical capability to a benign state that gave up? The answer must be yes."

He added: "I am as appalled as anyone else about what has been happening. It is awful to think that people should die in this way.

"But the reason we brought Libya from a position of being ostracised by the international community into the community of nations was precisely because they changed their policy externally in a way that was extremely important for our own security and that of the rest of the world."

Labour leader Ed Miliband today defended Mr Blair's decision to try to bring Colonel Gaddafi in from the cold in return for giving up WMD programmes.

He told BBC1's Breakfast: "I think, at that time, given that there seemed no prospect of a popular uprising in Libya, and given that there was a danger of Libya acquiring nuclear weapons, what Tony Blair did was get the weapons inspectors into Libya. I think, actually, that was the right thing to do.

"I think we must be careful about second-guessing that decision, but I think now a lot of the old assumptions about the Middle East and that region turn out to be misplaced, because there is clearly a popular will, which we see on the streets of Libya, for change.

"I support that change and I support the idea that Colonel Gaddafi should go."

Mr Miliband also called for a rethink of UK policy on weapons exports, saying: "We do need to look at the policy on arms sales. We do need to look at how it is implemented, because we don't want to see British arms being used for internal repression."

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