Delegates Meet in Support of Libya Rebels

With the United States limiting itself to a supporting role in the conflict, Britain, a key member of the alliance, said on Wednesday that it was impossible to forecast when the operation would achieve clear results

The meeting here was part of intensifying but diffuse diplomatic maneuvers as the combatants seem locked in a pattern of skirmishes that rarely change the lines for long.

Earlier this week, the African Union secured Colonel Qaddafi’s support for a “road map” toward a political settlement, but the rebels rejected it because they said it would allow the Libyan leader to remain in power.

On Tuesday, in a display of increasing frustration, France and Britain openly called on the alliance and its partners to intensify airstrikes on Libyan government troops to protect civilians, prompting an unusual public retort from NATO’s command that it was carrying out the military operation under the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized force.

“As long as regime forces continue attacking their own people, we will intervene to protect them,” Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard of Canada, the NATO operational commander, said in Naples, Italy. “NATO’s resolve is in its mandate to protect the civilian population.”

But before the gathering opened here on Wednesday, Mahmoud Shamman, a spokesman for the insurgents, reinforced the French and British criticism, saying, “When the Americans were involved, the mission was very active and it was more leaning toward protecting the civilians.”

“NATO is very slow responding to these attacks on the civilians,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying. “We’d like to see more work toward protecting the civilians.”

The Doha gathering was formally opened by Sheik Tamim bin Hamid al-Thani, a leading member of Qatar’s ruling family, who said the international community was in a “race against time” to help provide political and humanitarian assistance to Libyans under attack by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces.

Qatar, a rich Persian Gulf emirate, is playing a central role in efforts to resolve the Libya crisis. It is the only Arab country so far to have granted political recognition to the Libyan rebels, and it has provided NATO with political cover for its air campaign by sending its six Mirage fighter jets to fly alongside Western coalition partners enforcing a no-fly zone.

The meeting here was the first since outside powers, including the United States, met in London two weeks ago to establish a so-called Contact Group on Libya to help promote the rebels’ cause.

Libya’s former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who fled to Britain two weeks ago, was also in Doha but remained on the sidelines of the talks, Reuters reported, with rebels refusing to speak with him.

William Hague, the British foreign secretary, who is co-chairman of the Doha meeting, said the allies should press for a “genuine and real cease-fire” including the withdrawal of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces from key cities and a guarantee of humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Libyan population caught up in weeks of fighting.

Nations should keep up pressure on Colonel Qaddafi, Mr. Hague said, by enforcing sanctions and making clear that the Libyan leader “must leave power so that the Libyan people can determine their own future.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Hague was at the center of the dispute within NATO over the intensity of airstrikes, saying that the allies had to “maintain and intensify” the military effort, noting that Britain had already deployed extra ground attack planes.

“Of course, it would be welcome if other countries also did the same,” Mr. Hague said. On Wednesday, Belgium, another NATO ally, said pointedly that it did not believe such measures were necessary.

Pressed in a BBC radio interview on Wednesday to say how the Libyan campaign would be concluded, however, Mr. Hague said, “It will end with the departure of Qaddafi, with a political process in Libya that’s a more inclusive process.” But, he added, “It’s not possible to say on what day or what week that will end.”

Mr. Hague’s assessment of the state of the alliance, echoed by Foreign Minister Alain Juppé of France on Tuesday, reflected what officials have described as a complex and at times convoluted coalition, with many participating countries refusing to carry out airstrikes against forces on the ground, even as their planes patrol the skies over Libya.

The theme was likely to be taken up on Wednesday when Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain meets in Paris with President Nicolas Sarkozy over dinner.