Turkish Leader Says Qaddafi Must Step Down Immediately

Turkey has historic and business ties to Libya, and during more than two months of conflict it has tried to act as an intermediary between Colonel Qaddafi’s government and the rebels seeking his ouster. As a result, each side has accused Turkey of favoring the other, or of hedging its bets.

But on Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan appeared to draw a line, saying during a televised news conference that Colonel Qaddafi had violently resisted calls for change and that he must leave power for the good of the country and the Libyan people.

“Muammar Qaddafi, instead of taking our suggestions into account, refraining from shedding blood or seeking for ways to maintain the territorial unity of Libya, chose blood, tears, oppression and attacks on his own people,” Mr. Erdogan said. “Now, at this stage, the thing that needs to be done is Muammar Qaddafi to immediately step down from power that he holds in Libya.”

About 25,000 Turkish workers were engaged in major construction projects in Libya at the beginning of the unrest in February, and Turkey led an extensive evacuation operation for its citizens and others. The two countries began a visa agreement last year, allowing Libyan citizens to stay in Turkey for at least three months without a visa and signaling a turn in diplomatic and business relations.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Mr. Erdogan had spoken with Colonel Qaddafi three times in private, “urging him to step down peacefully and allow establishment of an administration to reflect people’s demands,” but that Colonel Qaddafi had refused.

A spokesman for the rebels, Jalal al-Gallal, called the announcement by the Turkish prime minister a welcome development, saying, “It just increases the isolation of the regime.” For weeks, Qaddafi opponents throughout eastern Libya had blamed Turkey — rightly or wrongly — for what they perceived as a slowdown in the NATO bombing campaign, and accused Turkey’s leaders of playing a double game.

“This means there is no more hindrance in NATO,” Mr. Gallal said.

Mr. Erdogan’s comments came ahead of an expected meeting between Arab and Western members of the Libya Contact Group in Rome this week. Colonel Qaddafi has dismissed a proposed “road map” to end the Libyan conflict that was put forward by Turkey last month and that included the withdrawal of armed forces from besieged cities, the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and democratic reforms.

Colonel Qaddafi’s forces kept up their attack on the besieged city of Misurata on Tuesday, though they concentrated most of their firepower on the front lines, rather than the city. They also continued to threaten shipping lanes into the port, the city’s lifeline, which has been closed for days by shelling.

The Red Star One, a vessel chartered by the International Organization for Migration, has been waiting offshore since Saturday for permission to dock and evacuate 1,000 mainly African migrants and dozens of wounded Libyan civilians, Reuters reported. Officials with the group called on NATO and Libyan authorities on Tuesday to assure the ship’s safe passage.

In the southwestern mountain region, loyalist forces shelled a road leading from a critical border crossing near Dhiba, Tunisia, that was seized by rebel forces last week, The Associated Press said. Having been defeated in their attempt to retake the crossing, the Qaddafi militias now seem content to shell the road, trying to disrupt the rebels’ efforts to resupply towns in the area.

At about 9 p.m. on Tuesday a large car bomb exploded near the courthouse that has become the symbol of the rebel movement in Benghazi, wounding at least two people and damaging buildings and cars nearby.

A rebel military spokesman, Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, citing the size of the explosion, said: “We’re 90 percent sure it’s a car bomb.” He said they were also exploring the possibility that dynamite that someone was preparing to use for fishing had accidentally caused the blast.

Crowds who gathered at the scene blamed Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists. As word of the explosion spread, it seemed to confirm the recurring fears in Benghazi that Colonel Qaddafi’s followers were living silently among them and intent on attacking symbols of fledgling rebel power, or the movement’s followers. In recent weeks, there has been a stepped-up security presence at the courthouse, where at a recent prayer service men with guns and uniforms formed a line around the worshipers.

The rebels have mounting financial problems as well. Their finance minister, Ali Tarhouni, told reporters on Tuesday that the rebels had only enough money to administer the areas under their control for three to four weeks, Reuters reported.

Mr. Tarhouni said that the rebels were hoping to borrow up to $3 billion — secured against Libya’s frozen assets — from countries like France, Italy and the United States to pay expenses including salaries.

At the United Nations, the secretary general’s envoy for Libya, Abdul Ilah Khatib, a former Jordanian foreign minister, briefed the Security Council on the considerable hurdles involved in such mediation. Although both sides have expressed willingness to respect a cease-fire, they maintain mutually exclusive pre-conditions. Colonel Qaddafi wants all NATO military action to stop first, while the opposition insists on the departure of Colonel Qaddafi and his family as the initial step, he noted.

Mr. Khatib said he was exploring ways to link a verifiable cease-fire with a lasting political process that includes all the relevant parties. “The main difficulty at this stage is getting all sides to agree on the essential elements of a political process that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people,” he told the council.

Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul, and Kareem Fahim from Benghazi, Libya. C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Misurata, Libya.