By IRNA,
Berlin: Germany is in talks with Libya’s rebel-led National Council but unlike France, refuses to grant diplomatic recognition to the Benghazi-based opposition group, press reports said on Friday.
The Mideast envoy of the German foreign ministry, Andreas Michaelis talked on the phone with the ‘foreign minister’ of the Libyan counter-government
Ali Asis Al-Eisawi.
The German side stressed that a new democratic Libyan government should be formed after free and fair elections which should include as many as possible political forces.
On Friday, a chancellery official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
made clear that the diplomatic recognition of Libya’s opposition National Council was ‘not relevant’ in terms of international law.
‘We recognize states and not groups within states,’ he reiterated.
Such a recognition applies only to a segment of the Libyan people, the German source added.
Berlin has joined demands by the European Union for Libyan dictator
Colonel Moammar Qadhafi ‘to relinquish power immediately.’