Russia has agreed to mediate an exit strategy with Col Muammar Gaddafi after appeals by President Barack Obama and President Nicolas of Sarkozy of France for his help in ending the stalemate in Libya.
Dmitry Medvedev has said he has offered Russia's mediating services to partners Photo: EPA/ANATOLY MALTSEV
By Alex Spillius, Deauville 9:00PM BST 27 May 2011
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The announcement came as Russian sources said that Mr Obama had asked the Russians at the G8 meeting in Deauville to pass on a message that the Libyan leader's safety would be guaranteed if he fled to another country.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said: "I have offered our mediating services to our partners. Everyone believes that it would be useful."
Washington is hoping that assurances that Col Gaddafi would not be pursued if he left Libya would finally persuade him to make an exit.
He has clung to power despite the two-month Nato bombing campaign against his armed forces, military assets and command centres.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Sarkozy said: "Yes, we need President Medvedev's help. This help is welcome." He confirmed that he planned to visit the Libyan rebel bastion of Benghazi, with David Cameron.
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A Russian diplomatic source present during a meeting between Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev on the sidelines of the summit said that the Russian leader and his delegation had expressed some scepticism about the offer.
"We asked them: 'Do you yourselves believe that Gaddafi can be convinced to give everything up?' Such a proposal did not seem particularly realistic to Russia," the diplomat told Kommersant, a Russian newspaper.
White House officials would not go into the specifics of the meeting, but pointed to remarks by Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy Russian foreign minister, who yesterday issued Moscow's first call for Col Gaddafi to step down and confirmed that it was prepared to broker his departure.
"Col Gaddafi has deprived himself of legitimacy with his actions, we should help him leave," he said in Deauville, the Normandy resort hosting the G8 summit.
Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser at the White House, said: "The Russians have long-standing relationships in Libya that frankly we don't have, and so we agreed that it would be important for us to remain in close contact with the Russians. We can benefit from those types of consultations and contacts.
The announcement of Russia's mediation was a major diplomatic coup for the Kremlin. It opposed the Western bombing campaign against Col Gaddafi's forces and abstained from the United Nations Security Council resolution passed in March that sanctioned the use of force to protect Libyan civilians. But it has expressed growing unease about Nato's ablility to finish the job quickly.
Britain and France have given clearance to deploy attack helicopters, including Apaches, for the first time to try and break the deadlock, after Mr Obama refused to make allow low-flying US A-10 aircraft to make more sorties.
Mr Cameron has defended plans to allow Apache helicopters to be deployed in Libya claiming it was a "moral imperative" for Britain to help Libyan freedom fighters.
The helicopters could be used within days, after Lt Gen Charles Bouchard, commander of Nato's operation against Col Gaddafi, said they "will be brought into action as soon as they are ready".
The aircraft are likely to be deployed first in Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, where pro-Gaddafi forces have been able to evade attack from high-altitude planes by concealing artillery pieces under trees or behind buildings in city streets.
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