Libya meeting more about meaning than action

The communique is out and calls for something that looks a lot like a loya jirga (remember them?) – it calls for “all Libyans” to come together, “including the Interim Transitional National Council, tribal leaders and others.”

The FCO hopes that by not making the rebels delegates to the actual London conference (they weren’t allowed to set foot in Lancaster House where the foreign ministers met) they have established some important distance. A Whitehall source said it was important to make it clear that the rebels were not western “stooges.”

The rebels’ spokesmen were trying to do the same thing in their press conference emphasising that they had drafted their own statement in Arabic and that it was not something that had been imposed on them by the countries who’ve sent jets to Libyan airspace. But William Hague lent his office in the FCO to the rebel leader Mahmoud Jebril today so he could meet with world leaders like Hilary Clinton and he also lent Mr Jebril a room in the Foreign Office for a press conference (and the FCO email so the statement of rebel values could be sent out).

There was a separate meeting of those who are deploying forces against Col Gaddafi. But in the end a huge part of today was about the image: nearly 40 foreign ministers and world organisations united, the planning for post-Gaddafi Libya underway…the message they hope is sent out is that the disunity and lousy planning over Iraq were mistakes that were not being repeated.

US Secretary Clinton said in her press conference that the US was confident that UNSCR 1973 gave legal powers to arm the rebels, though she added that she had not decided to do that yet. France’s Alain Juppe said France was ready to talk about arming the rebels but that UNSCR 1973 didn’t give legal powers to do so.