UN Security Council Not Pushing Libya Regime Change, Lavrov Says

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and said the United Nations’ Security Council is not pushing for regime change in Libya or any other country in the region.

“The Security Council has never put a change of regime in Libya or any other country as its goal,” Lavrov, on a one-day official visit to Belgrade today, told reporters, adding that those “who use the Security Council resolutions to change regimes are violating the mandate of the United Nations.”

Lavrov said opposition parties in Libya, backed by some western countries, were refusing to “sit at the negotiating table” and that the international community should be supporting “dialogue, not confrontation.”

Opposition parties in other countries, including Yemen, “seem to think they can reject sitting at the negotiating table because they expect assistance from abroad,” he said. “That is a very dangerous logic which can cause chain reactions.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Gordana Filipovic in Belgrade at Gfilipovic@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net