Further prob urged in NATO airstrike in Libya

UNITED NATIONS - China said here Wednesday that the UN Security Council should draw lessons from the handling of the Libyan issue, calling for further investigation on the airstrike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Libya last year.

Wang Min, deputy permanent representative of China to the United Nations, made the remarks at a Security Council meeting on Libya.

Wang said the Libyan conflict led to the massive return of people to their homeland and proliferation of weapons, which has affected the economic and social development of Libya's neighboring countries.

"This impact might persist for some time. Therefore we believe that the Security Council should draw lessons from the handling of the Libyan issue," he said.

He added that China welcomes Libya's decision to hold a regional conference on proliferation of weapons soon.

On the recent report of the UN-mandated commission of inquiry that probed human rights abuses in Libya, Wang said the report stated explicitly that the airstrike by NATO in Libya indeed caused civilian casualties. Some of the targets of airstrike are not military facilities.

The commission also suggests that further investigation have to be conducted. This finding is also in line with some of the media coverage, said Wang.

China would like to express its serious concern about this, Wang said.

"This has a bearing on the accurate implementation of the mandate of the Security Council resolutions. It has a bearing on the authority and seriousness of the resolutions of the Security Council," he said.

"Therefore, the Security Council has the necessity to understand the whole situation. China supports the efforts of the Security Council to ...carry out further investigation of this case," Wang said.

The commission of inquiry, established by an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council on February 25 last year, released a summary of its report last Friday. The commission is scheduled to present its report to the current session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 9.