Arabs Meet on Libya as Gadhafi Pressure Mounts

The Arab League was to hold key talks on the conflict in member state Libya Saturday, predicted to back a no-fly zone over the country to ramp up the pressure on strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Secretary General Amr Moussa called for a no-fly zone and said he wants the pan-Arab organization to play a role in imposing it, in an interview published Saturday.

"The United Nations, the Arab League, the African Union, the Europeans -- everyone should participate," Moussa told German weekly Der Spiegel

"I am talking about a humanitarian action. It consists, with a no-fly zone, of supporting the Libyan people in their fight for freedom against a regime that is more and more disdainful."

Moussa said Gadhafi was showing a lack of the "awareness that presidents Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt demonstrated by resigning" and predicted more revolts in the Arab world.

Top officials in the Arab League said two envoys from Tripoli would be excluded from the meeting, held as Gadhafi's forces step up their attacks on rebels.

"No Libyans will attend the meeting based on the decision of the Arab League on March 2 to suspend Libya from meetings," Hisham Youssef, Moussa's chief of staff, told AFP.

Foreign ministers and representatives of the 22-member bloc would discuss "the developments of the situation in Libya to find ways to end the bloodshed in Libya," Youssef said.

The foreign minister of European Union chair Hungary, Janos Martonyi, said Friday that "the expectation is that they will support a no-fly zone under some conditions."

"The best thing I think would be that a concerted action would be planned and implemented with the countries of the Arab League," he added.

EU leaders agreed at an emergency summit Friday to talk to Gadhafi's opponents and protect Libyan civilians "by all necessary means" while stopping short of outright military threat.

They demanded Gadhafi "relinquish power immediately" and deemed the opposition council based in the eastern city of Benghazi "a political interlocutor."

However there was no mention of calls from Britain and France for a no-fly zone, and strident demands from French President Nicolas Sarkozy for "targeted action" against Gadhafi went unheeded.