Washington, March 08: The United States said today it was considering whether to arm the Libyan opposition, but said it would be premature to do so now, amid rising pressure on the White House over the crisis.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said US officials were seeking to learn as much as they could about Libyan opposition groups, but that offering weapons to opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was only one option on the table.
However, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said it would currently be illegal for the US to arm the opposition because of a UN Security Council resolution banning all weapon shipments to Libya.
Mr Carney said: “On the issue of … arming, providing weapons, it is one of the range of options that is being considered.
“We are pursuing a number of channels to have conversations and discussions with the opposition groups and individuals, as we try to learn more about what they are pursuing, what they want.
“Speaking more generally, you have to be very cognisant however when you pursue these options of what it is you are trying to accomplish.
“It would be premature to send a bunch of weapons to a PO Box in eastern Libya, we need to not get ahead of ourselves,” Mr Carney said.
On Sunday, Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell called for the option of arming insurgents to be considered in Libya, further raising domestic political pressure on Mr Obama over the issue.
Veteran diplomatic troubleshooter Bill Richardson, a Democrat, also made a similar call.
But Mr Crowley said he understood such a move would violate action taken at the United Nations on February 26.
“In the UN Security Council resolution passed on Libya, there is an arms embargo that affects Libya, which means it’s a violation for any country to provide arms to anyone in Libya,” Mr Crowley said.
“It would be illegal for the United States to do that,” he added.
However, he did not exclude a future Security Council resolution or some other action that would reverse the ban.
“As events go forward, I can’t predict what is going to happen,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Crowley said he believed that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had discussed events in Libya as well as those in Tunisia and Egypt when she met with France’s new Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.
In underscoring the US “desire to work closely with France on a full range of global issues,” he said, Ms Clinton also probably discussed the Arab-Israeli peace process and the violence in Ivory Coast.
——–Agencies