By IANS/AKI,
Milan : Italy has unfrozen 350 million euros (around $503 million) of Libyan assets that can be used by the transitional government to pay salaries and provide other services, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced Thursday.
“We’ve shown our willingness to unfreeze state funds held in Italian banks and began with the first tranche of 350 million euros,” Berlusconi said during a joint press briefing with Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC).
Jibril and the TNC have begun lobbying to get around $100 billion of assets frozen around the world to be released. Overnight, the UN sanctions committee released assets worth $500 million.
“The battle is still going on and we need urgent held,” Jibril told journalists during the Milan briefing, which followed a meeting with Berlusconi and other Italian officials. “Our people have not received salaries in months.”
One of the priorities is to reconstruct infrastructure like power plants that have been destroyed during the civil war that started five months ago, Jibril said.
“The priorities can’t be carried out without the necessary money,” he said.
Jibril added that the legitimacy of the rebel movement among the Libyan people depends on delivering services like healthcare and education.