South African President Jacob Zuma's mediating mission to Libya ended with the government and rebels entrenched in their positions that have brought the three-month conflict to a stalemate, media reports said Tuesday.
Hopes for a breakthrough from Zuma's meeting Monday with Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi were quashed after Zuma said before his departure from Tripoli that Gaddafi would accept an African Union proposal for an immediate ceasefire, including a halt to NATO airstrikes, and talks, DPA reported.
Gaddafi showed no movement on the demand by rebels, who control major cities in eastern Libya, that he give up power after 42 years at the helm of the North African country and go into exile.
A Libya without Gaddafi is also a demand of the NATO countries conducting airstrikes against his government, as well as longtime Gaddafi ally Russia.
Meanwhile, eight Libyan military officers, including five generals, appeared in Rome to say they were part of a group of up to 120 military officials defecting from Gaddafi's regime.
"What is happening to our people has frightened us," one man identifying himself as General Oun Ali Oun said at a press conference organized by the Italian government. "No wise, rational person with the minimum of dignity can do what we saw with our eyes and what he asked us to do."
Another officer said Gaddafi's military forces were weakening and predicted he would fall.
The NATO airstrikes that began 10 weeks ago continued Monday a few hours after Zuma left Libya as explosions were heard around Tripoli. The government said a military construction site in Abu Sita, about 10 kilometres from the centre of the capital, was hit.
Two large explosions also rocked Tripoli itself early Tuesday within five minutes of one another, CNN reported. NATO, which is conducting the airstrikes under a UN mandate to protect civilians from the Libyan military, recently stepped up its strikes on the capital.
Libyan state television showed footage of Gaddafi meeting Zuma in Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound, where, it said, Gaddafi has been staying since fighting between his forces and rebels broke out in February. The footage was the first shown of Gaddafi in more than two weeks.
The talks were reportedly to also take up a potential exit strategy for Gaddafi, but they, like Zuma's initial mediating mission in April, ended without success.
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