Global General

Security Council to meet on Libyan no-fly zone

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-03-16 09:07

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on Wednesday morning to discuss the issue of the no-fly zone over Libya, Li Baodong, the Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations who holds the rotating council presidency for March, told reporters here.    

Li made the statement after the 15-nation Security Council met behind closed doors on the issue. The Security Council adjourned the closed consultations on Libya on Tuesday afternoon, with some Council members doubting whether such a no-fly zone will work.

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The Security Council will meet again at 11:00 am on Wednesday, Li said. "The council has decided, through the consultation there is an agreement, we are going to meet tomorrow morning at 11 to continue the discussion of this matter."

"This afternoon the council had informal consultations on the situation in Libya," Li said. "During the consultation, the Lebanese permanent representative (Nawaf Salam) made a proposal with a text asking the council to discuss the possibility of establishing a no-fly zone (over Libya)."

"The council members had preliminary debate and discussion on the draft," he said.

At the Security Council's Tuesday meeting, Lebanon, a non- permanent member of the Security Council, tabled a draft resolution which called for a no-fly zone over Libya and tried to answer questions from other Council members, he said, adding that France and Britain, the co-authors of the draft resolution, "also made further explanation about why there is a necessity to establish a no-fly zone by the Security Council."    

"As I said the members started and discussed this draft, and also raised some questions," Li said. "The Lebanese colleague tried to answer the questions and also he believed that he has to check with members of the Arab League. He will come back tomorrow with some answers and members believe that they should report what was discussed by the council and also the draft back to their capitals to get instructions."

On Saturday, the Arab League decided to endorse the no-fly over Libya.

France is pushing for the adoption of the draft resolution, saying that it is the goal of France to get the authorized no-fly zone over Libya.  At the same time, Germany, another non-permanent member of the Security Council, said here that "there is a sense of urgency," but a number of the questions that the country raised remained unanswered.