By IRNA,
London : Former High Representative to Bosnia Lord Ashdown Wednesday cautioned Prime Minister David Cameron against rushing ahead to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and also said it would need to be sanctioned by the UN.
Ashdown, a former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, also said that support for military intervention in Libya had to be obtained from a wider ‘circle’ than the West and must include the Arab world and Russia.
“Making contingencies for a no-fly zone is absolutely right, absolutely proper. That doesn’t mean to say it’s right now,’ he said, also making clear that any intervention or the imposition of a no-fly zone would have to be backed by the United Nations.
‘In my view this cannot be done without a UN Security Council Resolution, it cannot be done unless you widen beyond the circle of the West to bring in other nations and it cannot be done unless there is a request from the people of Libya and you have wider Arab support to bring it about.’
Ashdown, a former marine and intelligence officer, led the campaign in Britain for military intervention against Yugoslavia in the 1990s before being appointed as the high representative of Bosnia to oversee the implementation of the Drayton Accords.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Wednesday, he said that with regard to Libya there was “the baneful legacy of not only the American bombings of Tripoli in 1986, but also of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“We will simply not be able to persuade the wider Arab world that if were to seek to act or assist the Libyans to design their own democracy within the present situation, we were not just repeating that and that’s why the wider political support is so important,’ he warned.
Cameron has come under domestic criticism for the belligerent military stance he has adopted in calling for regime change in Libya following the violent backlash against rebel protesters, with some commentators suggesting it could become his first war.
But reports Wednesday suggested that he had backed down from suggesting that Nato should establish a no-fly zone over the country and that rebel forces should be armed after the US administration publicly distanced itself from the proposals.
Ashdown said that the world dealing with a “dynamic situation here, not a static one” following the uprisings in the Arab World, but warned that “it’s the politics you’ve got to watch.’
He claimed that Europe had a ‘strategic opportunity’ to improve relations with Arab countries and said it was crucial to do so to avoid the rise of more undemocratic regimes.
On Tuesday, former British prime minister Sir John Major also stressed that external military intervention in Libya must be a “last resort” and any involvement should be sanctioned by the United Nations.