South African President Jacob Zuma made little apparent headway towards brokering a Libya peace deal in talks with Muammar Gaddafi today.
Mr Zuma told Libyan media that Gaddafi wanted a ceasefire including an end to NATO bombing, terms already rejected last month after an earlier mediation mission by Zuma.
Mr Zuma added, without elaborating: ‘We discussed the necessity of giving the Libyan people the opportunity to solve their problem on their own.’
The television broadcast footage of Gaddafi welcoming Mr Zuma, giving the outside world the first view of the Libyan leader since 11 May, when he was shown by the country's television meeting what it said were tribal leaders.
Gaddafi was shown greeting Mr Zuma and other officials and then walking with them down a corridor.
Gaddafi and Mr Zuma's delegation were then seen sitting in white armchairs in a large room. The television did not say where the meeting took place.
Gaddafi was also shown thrusting his fist in the air as he bid farewell to Mr Zuma, who was seen boarding a plane at the end of the visit.
A source in Mr Zuma's office, on condition of anonymity, had said that 'the purpose (of the visit) is to discuss an exit strategy for Gaddafi,' while another said South Africa was working with Turkey on the exit plan.
Mr Zuma's spokesman Zizi Kodwa insisted however that discussion of an exit strategy was 'misleading', saying the visit was taking place within African Union efforts for Libya to adopt the political reforms needed to end the crisis.
International pressure on Colonel Gaddafi continues to grow, with the G8 calling for his departure and Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev saying he no longer had the right to lead Libya.
On Friday, G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States called for Gaddafi to step down.
Russia at the same time finally joined explicit calls for Gaddafi to go.
The Libyan regime responded by saying any initiative to resolve the crisis would have to go through the African Union.
'The G8 is an economic summit. We are not concerned by its decisions,' said Tripoli's deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaaim.
'We are an African country. Any initiative outside the AU framework will be rejected,' he said.
Meanwhile, eight high-ranking Libyan army officers have appeared in Rome saying they are part of a group of as many as 120 military officials and soldiers who had defected from Gaddafi's side in recent days.
The eight officers - five generals, two colonels and a major - spoke at a hastily-called news conference organised by the Italian government, which is one of a handful of countries that has recognised the Libyan rebel movement fighting Gaddafi as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.
‘What is happening to our people has frightened us,’ said one officer, who identified himself as General Oun Ali Oun.
‘There is a lot of killing, genocide ... violence against women. No wise, rational person with the minimum of dignity can do what we saw with our eyes and what he asked us to do.’
Another officer, General Salah Giuma Yahmed, said Gaddafi's army was weakening day by day, with the force reduced to 20 percent of its original capacity.
‘Gaddafi's days are numbered,’ said Mr Yahmed.
Libyan UN ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgam, who has also defected from Gaddafi, said all 120 military personnel were outside Libya now but did not say where they were.
Earlier, Al Arabiya television said 120 Libyan officers had arrived in Rome.
The Libyan ambassador to Rome, yet another defector, said only the eight present at the news conference were in the Italian capital.
The defectors said they escaped Libya over its western border into Tunisia via crossings controlled by the rebels.
Each defection was the result of a combination of factors, said Noman Benotman, another opposition activist who works as an analyst for Britain's Quilliam Foundation think tank.
But the latest group had been spurred largely by tensions, Benotman said, arising from the appointment of what he called newcomers to senior positions in the security services.
The behaviour of these men, many of them relatively youthful Gaddafi loyalists in their mid-30s, had stirred anger and dismay among the army's officer ranks, who regarded their actions as overbearing and brutal, Benotman said.
‘The army officers feel they are being watched all the time.
'TYhey feel uncomfortable because they feel a lack of trust. So at the first chance of defection they took it,’ he said.
He added that many of the newly appointed senior security officials were Gaddafi relatives.
NATO says campaign achieving its objectives
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO's military campaign in Libya is achieving its goals and the rule of Gaddafi is coming to an end.
'Our operation in Libya is achieving its objectives… We have seriously degraded Gaddafi's ability to kill his own people', Rasmussen told a NATO forum in Varna.
'Gaddafi's reign of terror is coming to an end. He is increasingly isolated at home and abroad.'
On the humanitarian front, Italian coastguards rescued 210 refugees from the Libya conflict whose vessel was drifting aimlessly in the Mediterranean south of Lampedusa, prompting Rome to accuse Malta of inaction.
