Libya offers truce to UN:

Revolt enters fourth month

LIBYA: Moamer Kadhafi’s regime offered a truce in return for an immediate NATO ceasefire a day before the International Criminal Court considers arrest warrants for rights abuses in Libya.

Kadhafi’s prime minister proposed the truce Sunday to the visiting UN special envoy to Libya, Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib, as an anti-regime revolt entered a fourth month.

The head of Britain’s armed forces, meanwhile, said NATO should widen its bombing campaign to ensure Kadhafi is unable to cling to power, while Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday called for negotiations to end the violence.

Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi, quoted by JANA state news agency, said after meeting Khatib that Libya wants “an immediate ceasefire to coincide with a stop to the NATO bombardment and the acceptance of international observers.”

Libya, he added, was committed to the unity of its territory and people and that Libyans had the right to “decide on their internal affairs and political system through democratic dialogue away from the bombing threat.”

Tripoli, Monday, AFP