LUXEMBOURG, June 20 (Reuters) - NATO risks losing the propaganda war to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi because of actions which have killed civilians, the Italian foreign minister said on Monday.
NATO admitted on Sunday it destroyed a house in Tripoli in which Libyan officials said nine civilians were killed -- an incident that sows new doubts inside the alliance about its mission in Libya.
"NATO is endangering its credibility; we cannot risk killing civilians," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters ahead of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg due to discuss ways to aid rebels opposed to Gaddafi.
Frattini expressed concern that NATO was losing the propaganda war to Gaddafi and that Western media reports did not emphasise enough the good work done by the alliance every day in protecting civilians in Libya.
"We cannot continue our shortcomings in the way we communicate with the public, which doesn't keep up with the daily propaganda of Gaddafi," he said.
Frattini said NATO had set what he called a "deadline" to conclude the bombing campaign by September, when a second alliance operations cycle will end, but should be looking for a solution to the crisis in Libya before that.
Other NATO states have said the operation, which the alliance took over on March 31, will continue as long as necessary.
Sunday's statement was the first time NATO has admitted killing civilians in a mission in which its U.N. mandate is to protect civilians. The incident took place with NATO already under strain from a campaign that is taking more time and resources than some allies had expected.
Italy is one of only eight NATO states taking part in air strikes on Libya and was initially reluctant to join them given its colonial past in the country and the mission has been questioned in the governing coalition.
Gaddafi has called the NATO campaign an act of colonial aggression designed to steal oil.
NATO said a military missile site was the intended target of the air strikes but that it appeared one of the weapons did not strike that target, possibly due to a malfunction.
Reporters taken to the residential area in Tripoli's Souq al-Juma district by Libyan officials on Sunday saw several bodies being pulled out of the rubble of a destroyed building. In a hospital, they were shown the bodies of two children and three adults who, officials said, were among those killed.
No comments:
Post a Comment