Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, said that the government is in talks with the French government and not with the rebels, according to an interview published on Monday in an Algerian newspaper.
"Actually, we are negotiating with France and not with the rebels," al-Islam told el-Khabar newspaper in an interview in Tripoli, DPA reported.
He said that members of the Gaddafi administration met with representatives of rebel's council in Cairo, after the rebels contacted them. Yet, France objected the meeting and said all communications between the two sides should be through French means, he added.
"Our envoy to the French president said he was very clear and said 'We created the council, and without our support, money and our weapons, the council would have never existed'," the newspaper quoted al-Islam as saying.
The Libyan government said recently that it had held talks with members of the rebel's Transitional National Council in Italy, Egypt and Norway, without specifying when such meetings were held.
Senior opposition officials, however, denied that negotiations were taking place.
Representatives of several Libyan tribes arrived in Cairo last week for talks with rebels as part of a mediation efforts to reach an end to the conflict.
The uprising against Gaddafi, who has been in power for 42 years, began in mid-February as protests turned into an armed conflict after a bloody government crackdown on demonstrators.
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