Libyan rebels have rejected an African Union peace plan for their country because they said it would leave Muammar Gaddafi in power.
African leaders agreed at a meeting in Equatorial Guinea on Friday on a peace plan that rules the Libyan leader out of talks with rebels and presented it to both sides in the hope that it could lead to negotiations.
The plan includes a commitment from Gaddafi ‘in favour of an inclusive process of dialogue...and his acceptance that he will not be part of the process of negotiations’.
It makes no call for Gaddafi to step down, a key demand of rebels in the National Transitional Council who reiterated at the meeting that he had to go for any political solution to the conflict.
The conflict in Libya is close to deadlock, with rebels on three fronts unable to make a decisive advance towards the Libyan capital and growing strains inside NATO about the cost of the operation and the lack of a military breakthrough.
Previous attempts to negotiate a peace deal have foundered, but some analysts say Gaddafi's entourage - if perhaps not the Libyan leader himself - may look for a way out as air strikes and sanctions narrow their options.
Gaddafi's daughter Aisha said last week her father would be prepared to cut a deal with the rebels though he would not leave the country, and his son, Saif al-Islam, has said Gaddafi would step down if that is what the people of Libya want.
Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi - part of a hardline camp which has clashed with Saif al-Islam on policy in the past - said the Libyan people did not want Muammar Gaddafi to go.
‘You see everyone, from small children to old men, all of them love Muammar Gaddafi, they all love him,’ he said.
Libya's Jana news agency said Gaddafi had sent a message to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to mark Germany taking over the leadership of the UN Security Council, without giving further details. Germany said it had no knowledge of any such a letter.
Away from the rhetoric, both sides continued to slug it out in a battle which has seen many casualties but, for the past few weeks, only small parcels of land changing hands.
A rebel spokesman in Misrata, about 200km east of Tripoli, said two rebel fighters had been killed on the outskirts of the city, where they are struggling to push back government forces and advance on the capital.
On the front closest to Tripoli, in the Western Mountains region, NATO aircraft dropped leaflets on the government-controlled town of Garyan, warning residents to stay in their homes, said a rebel spokesman called Mohammed.
The alliance last week launched air strikes on the town, which lies on the edge of rebel-held territory.
The rebel spokesman also said there was fighting with heavy weapons on Saturday between rebels and government forces around the village of Ghezaya, in the mountains near the border with Tunisia.
