MOSCOW // Russia hosted an envoy of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi yesterday, telling Tripoli to obey UN resolutions on Libya as Moscow seeks to position itself as a mediator in the conflict.
The visit to Moscow by Mohammed Ahmed al Sharif, the general secretary of the World Islamic Call Society, the Libya-based group founded by Colonel Qaddafi, comes as Russia is also preparing to hold talks with rebels fighting the regime.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said after talks with Mr al Sharif: "We raised the issues that directly come out of our principal position aimed first and foremost at urgently ending bloodletting in Libya.
"We raised an issue about the need for the Libyan leadership to explicitly embrace and begin the implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions in full," Mr Lavrov said.
"These resolutions demand that any use of military force against peaceful civilians be stopped."
Moscow, which has been strongly critical of the international campaign against Colonel Qaddafi's regime, had agreed to talk to both Col Qaddafi's envoys and rebels, who had also planned to come to Moscow but had to delay their trip.
Mr Lavrov said the envoy said Tripoli was ready to co-operate if rebels and Nato stopped hostilities as well.
"The answer that we heard could not be called negative," Mr Lavrov said. He once again reiterated the need to immediately begin negotiations to avoid further casualties.
"The main thing right now is to agree terms and conditions of a ceasefire," Mr Lavrov said.
"This will create a firm foundation allowing at the next stage to begin national dialogue about the country's future, the future of a new Libya."
Mr Lavrov said Libya's rebels had to postpone their Russia visit for "technical reasons", adding that Moscow would be awaiting their arrival.
In March, Russia abstained from the UN Security Council resolution on Libya that essentially authorised military action. But since then, the Kremlin has accused the West of exceeding the UN mandate and getting entangled in a full-blown military operation in Libya.
The Libya envoy's visit to Moscow comes as the International Criminal Court prosecutor sought Colonel Qaddafi's arrest for crimes against humanity and Nato jets continued to pound the country.
Parts of Tripoli have been targeted almost daily by Nato-led strikes launched on March 19 after a UN resolution called for the protection of civilians from Col Qaddafi's regime.
Moscow has refused to accept the rebels as a legitimate power in Libya and still has formal ties with the Qaddafi regime.
While some say Moscow's efforts to mediate the conflict are doomed, others counter that mediators should exhaust all diplomatic efforts to prevent the war from spilling over the country's borders.
Alexander Tkachenko, the head of the Centre for North African and African Horn Studies at the Institute of African Studies, said: "It is important to try to use all possible political methods to find a way out of the deadlock. A bad peace is better than a good war."
Moscow used to accommodate nearly all Colonel Qaddafi's whims, as it competed with Western countries for access to the resource-rich country,
When the Libyan leader arrived in Moscow for his first visit to post-Soviet Russia in 2008, Moscow let him pitch his Bedouin tent inside the Kremlin walls, in a break from security protocol.
