Deal puts NATO at head of Libyan operation

Accepting the power sharing compromise offered by President Barack Obama, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said NATO would not take the "political leadership", but would have a planning and operational role to enforce the UN-backed no-fly zone.

Speaking in Paris, Mr Juppe said this role would fall to a committee of foreign affairs ministers from coalition countries taking part in military operations along with the Arab League.

"NATO will intervene as a tool for planning and operational action. It will not exercise political leadership," he said.

After acrimony among Western nations about who should lead attacks on Muammar Gaddafi's regime, Mr Obama offered a power-sharing compromise deal to French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday as it became obvious tensions over leadership were hindering the future of the operation. Mr Obama again made it clear the US wanted to hand over leadership in a matter of days.

Most bickering has centred on Britain and France, with Mr Cameron backing a shift to NATO control while Mr Sarkozy has advocated broader leadership.

The US President persuaded Mr Sarkozy yesterday to back away from his hard-line position that NATO should be shut out of the command structure. Instead, under split control, Mr Obama proposed that NATO should have military command while political running of the operation was put in the hands of a wider group of foreign ministers.

The compromise is a sop not only to Mr Sarkozy but also to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan, who leads a Muslim country and has baulked at NATO leadership among other misgivings about the Libyan mission, despite his nation being one of NATO's largest members.

There is still no guarantee that Mr Obama's proposed deal will work as divisions continue among about what imposing a no-fly zone in Libya means.

The US, Britain and France appear notionally to adhere to the position that Operation Odyssey Dawn is a UN-sanctioned mission to protect the Libyan population from atrocities as Gaddafi tries to regain control of his country by bombing rebels in Benghazi and other cities.

But attacks on the Libyan dictator's residential compound and jet fighter attacks on his tanks and armoured vehicles outside Benghazi have prompted debate about whether their real objective is regime change with possible assassination of the leader.

Tensions over leadership of the UN-backed mission prompted Mr Obama to interrupt his tour of El Salvador yesterday to make separate calls to Mr Sarkozy and Mr Cameron to try to bridge differences. The US led the Libyan operation initially because it had the military hardware to establish a no-fly zone.

Mr Obama wants to abdicate this role because of his concern not to fuel anxiety among Arab countries that the US might have imperialist ambitions in Libya.

France's ambassador to the US, Francois Delattre, denied claims his country had acted unilaterally by sending jets into Libya without consulting coalition partners.