Gulf Today Mar 7 2011
Let Europe deal with Libya, Italy tells US
March 07, 2011
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/27462f25-1e03-42d5-a38a-0ff1bf211f9d.aspx
ROME: Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has called on the United States to restrain itself over Libya and leave Europe to deal with the crisis, which he said risked seeing a rise in extremism, Italian media reported on Sunday.
"We have to make sure Libya does not become the new Afghanistan, but the Americans would do well to calm down," Roberto Maroni said on Saturday at a meeting of the anti-immigration Northern League party, of which he is a member. "We are here, Europe is here, and it's best that we take care of things."
Maroni denied being alarmist and said it was necessary to avoid a mass flight of refugees from Libya and surrounding countries towards Europe.
"The collapse of these countries could give birth to regimes supported by Islamic fundamentalism, with the risk of infiltration by Al Qaeda," he said.
While US President Barack Obama has argued his country must not become a player in the Libyan revolt, to avoid backlash in a region that reviles the US invasion of Iraq and is marked by colonialism, he has not ruled out military action.
Northern League chief Umberto Bossi said military action on the part of the West would aggravate the problem of refugees fleeing the region for Italy.
"There should be no bombardments, otherwise they'll just come here," he said.
Libya's neighbours Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, have mobilised to receive and repatriate a tide of refugees fleeing the unrest, with help from European countries and the United States.
French call
Europe and France cannot "allow the criminal folly" of Mummar Qadhafi in dealing with Libya's uprising, said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe during during a Sunday visit to Cairo.
Juppe, speaking to the French community in Egypt, said he would raise the issue with the Arab League chief Amr Musa, whose institution is based in Cairo.
Juppe said that his visit to the Egyptian capital, which is his first official trip outside Europe since he took office on Tuesday, shows "France's commitment in the face of extraordinary upheavals" in the Arab World.
He rejected criticism of lack of reaction in Paris to the Arab uprisings, saying "these revolutions took us all by surprise." "It is not correct to say that we took too long to react" because "we quickly declared our availability to support the march to freedom" of these countries, he added.
Juppe said Egypt, the most populous country in the region," was a "key country for the future of the Arab World" and that it "gave the example, without being overly optimistic, of what can be a controlled liberation." But he also cautioned "nothing is a given."
"We are of course confident but the worst of outcomes has not been excluded. As we watch what is going on in Libya today, we see clearly that this transition can be painful."
Juppe was to hold talks with Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the institution to which long-time strongman Hosni Mubarak handed over power on Feb.11 when he resigned.
He also plans to meet members of Egypt's youth coalition that helped to overturn Mubarak before returning to Paris late Sunday.
Juppe, a former French prime minister, was named foreign minister on Feb.27 by President Nicolas Sarkozy in place of Michele Alliot-Marie, who was tainted by her ties to the former Tunisian regime.
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