President Obama stated today that Libyan leader Gadhafi needs to do what’s right for his country and leave. This marks the first time a president has told the Libyan leader to leave. Read the full story after the jump!!
(MSNBC)–President Barack Obama on Saturday said embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has lost the legitimacy to rule, and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now. It was the first time he called on Gadhafi to step down.
Obama made the comments to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a private telephone conversation about the violence in Libya.
According to the White House, Obama told Merkel that when a leader’s only means of holding power is to use violence against his people, he needs to do what’s right by “leaving now.”
Also Saturday, officials announced the U.S. had revoked visas for senior Libyan officials and their family members.
Meanwhile, U.N. Security Council met in an urgent session to consider sanctions to punish Libya for itsviolent attacks against anti-government protesters.
The sanctions under consideration at Saturday’s session include an arms embargo against the Libyan government and a travel ban and asset freeze directed at Gadhafi, his relatives and key regime members.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging council members to take immediate action to protect civilians in Libya where some estimates indicate more than 1,000 people have been killed in less than two weeks. Many people in Tripoli and other areas where Gadhafi remains in control cannot leave their homes for fear of being shot.
“In these circumstances, the loss of time means more loss of lives,” the U.N. chief said Friday.
The major sticking point in council deliberations was likely to be language in the proposed resolution that refers the violent crackdown in Libya to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for investigation of possible crimes against humanity.
What’s Being Considered:
The sanctions being considered do not include a no-fly zone over Libya and no U.N.-sanctioned military action was planned. NATO has also ruled out any intervention in Libya.
Backers of the proposal circulated by France, Germany, Britain and the United States insist the language is necessary, but diplomats speaking on background said Portugal was worried that the referral could endanger Portuguese citizens still inside Libya.
France’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said his country was still working to get consensus, and that “it may all be in the language.”
Otherwise, “I have been quite surprised by the commonality of support on the sanctions,” Araud said before the midday meeting. “We’ll see if it lasts.”
Earlier Saturday, in Ankara, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the council not to impose sanctions, warning that the Libyan people, not Gadhafi’s government, would suffer most.
Erdogan also suggested the international community might be acting more out of concern about Libya’s oil reserves than about the welfare of its people.
“The people are already struggling to find food, how will you feed the Libyan people?” Erdogan asked. “Sanctions, an intervention, would force the Libyan people, who are already up against hunger and violence, into a more desperate situation.”
“We call on the international community to act with conscience, justice, laws and universal humane values — not out of oil concerns,” he said.
But Germany’s Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron talked on the phone Saturday and agreed the Security Council should approve harsh sanctions against the Libyan regime as soon as possible, Merkel’s spokesman, Christoph Steegmans said in a statement.
Merkel and Cameron also favor European Union sanctions against Libya, he said.
Cameron’s office said he also had spoken with Erdogan and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and “made clear that the Libyan regime would face the consequences of its actions.”
“There can be no impunity for the blatant and inhuman disregard for basic rights that is taking place in Libya,” Cameron was quoted as saying.
In Washington, the White House on Friday announced sweeping new sanctions and temporarily abandoned its embassy in Tripoli as a final flight carrying American citizens left the embattled capital.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley hit at Gadhafi in a Twitter posting Saturday.
“Despite Qaddafi’s hardly sober claim that the protesters are on drugs, the people of Libya are clear-eyed in their demand for change,” he tweeted.
The Security Council was meeting Saturday for the second time in two days. On Friday, Libya’s ambassador to the U.N. beseeched the council to help halt the deadly attacks that his once-close comrade Gadhafi has unleashed on his critics.
“I hope that within hours, not days, they can do something tangible, effective to stop what they are doing there — Gadhafi and his sons — against our people,” Ambassador Mohamed Shalgham said after addressing the council.
A nonviolent revolt against Gadhafi’s four-decade-old rule began Feb. 15 amid a wave of uprisings in the Arab world and most of the country’s eastern half is controlled by rebels. Witnesses say Gadhafi’s government has responded by shooting at protesters in numerous cities.
On Friday, for the second time this week, the Security Council called for “an immediate end to the violence,” expressing grave concern at the deteriorating situation, particularly “reports of civilian casualties on a very large scale.”
In Geneva on Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Council called for an investigation into possible crimes against humanity in Libya and recommended Libya’s suspension from membership of the world body’s top human rights body.
