Libya's new rulers are ready to forgive the forces of slain leader Muammar Gaddafi who battled rebels trying to topple his autocratic regime, National Transition Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said today.
"In Libya we are able to absorb all. Libya is for all," Mr Abdel Jalil said in Tripoli as he launched a national reconciliation conference organised by the NTC.
"Despite what the army of the oppressor did to our cities and our villages, our brothers who fought against the rebels as the army of Gadaffi (did), we are ready to forgive them," he said.
"We are able to forgive and tolerate," he added.
The conference, the first of its kind since the NTC declared the total liberation of Libya on 23 October, was attended by delegates from the major Libyan tribes and ethnic groups, as well as from Qatar and Tunisia.
Libya's new interim Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib echoed Mr Abdel Jalil.
"National reconciliation is an essential condition to build the constitutional institutions of a state," he told the conference.
"The future cannot be built with revenge as a base."
Mr Kib announced his government on 22 November, just a month after the capture and killing of Gaddafi who ruled the country with an iron fist for 42 years.
A statement issued last month said the new government will help efforts by the NTC "to achieve national reconciliation" in Libya.
It will also strive to rebuild the army and the security forces and promote "the integration of interested citizens into these institutions," said the statement.
Meanwhile Mr Kib's government is under heavy pressure to disarm hundreds of former rebels who toppled Gaddafi’s regime and who are now enforcing security on the streets.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after the death of Gaddafi on 20 October that for the transitional authorities in Libya "inclusion and pluralism must be the watchwords," urging all sides to avoid revenge attacks.
