Ban discusses Libya with Obama; urges punishment of those responsible for violence

UNITED NATIONS. March 1. KAZINFORM Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held talks on Libya with United States President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., yesterday, later stating that Muammar Al-Qadhafi's regime had declared war on its own people and must be brought to account for possible crimes against humanity.

"We agreed that the international community must stand firmly together during this historic transition toward a more democratic, secure and prosperous Middle East," Mr. Ban said of his talks with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office, praising the president's "firm leadership" and telling Mr. Qadhafi that he should listen to his people's call to leave. The crisis in Libya has seen elements of Mr. Qadhafi's government use deadly force in its repression of protesters.

Earlier Monday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he would decide "without delay" whether to open an investigation into whether the violent repression of peaceful protesters amounted to crimes against humanity, stressing that there would be no impunity for guilty leaders.

On Saturday, in a unanimously adopted resolution, the Security Council imposed sanctions against the Libyan authorities, placing an arms embargo against the country and freezing the assets of its leaders, while referring the ongoing violent repression of civilian demonstrators to the ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands.

Speaking to reporters at Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust Museum after his White House visit, Mr. Ban said the Council's actions are "important and unprecedented, and I'll make sure that these measures are implemented swiftly."

Already last week, Mr. Ban condemned Mr. Qadhafi's actions against protestors as possible crimes against humanity, calling for the punishment of those who "brutally shed" the blood of innocents. Media reports on the number of people killed range from the hundreds into the thousands.

It was a message he underscored in a statement delivered at the Holocaust Museum, in which he recalled that 70 years ago six million people were murdered at the instigation of a state, the UN News Centre reports.

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