British Foreign Secretary William Hague told lawmakers that a first payment of $100 million in international aid money had been made to Libya’s main opposition group.
At a meeting in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month, the international contact group on Libya pledged more than $1.3 billion to help support the opposition.
“In the last week they received the first international funding ... through the temporary financing mechanism set up by the contact group for vital fuel and salaries,” Hague told lawmakers.
He said a meeting of the contact group in Istanbul next month would seek to ensure “the international community is ready to support the Libyan people in building a stable future.” Libya’s Transitional National Council said that funds would be used to pay teachers, street cleaners and other workers providing essential services.
Opposition Finance Minister Ali Tarhouni has made repeated pleas for urgent funds, and warned on Tuesday that hospitals in the eastern city of Benghazi were running low on medical supplies.
Meanwhile, Libyan officials denied reports of advances by opposition fighters there toward the capital. They said that areas around the Nafusa mountains southwest of Tripoli remain under government control.
Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi told reporters Wednesday that the situation in the mountains is “good” and “under control.” The municipal governor of Gharyan, a city at the gateway to the mountains and on a major road to Tripoli, says the “situation is much better than the news tries to report.” Abdul-Nabi Mohammed Bakir also says reports of opposition advances are incorrect.
Opposition fighters who control several villages in the mountains this week claimed to have advanced to the town of Bir Al-Ghanam, some 80 km from Tripoli.
In another development, a spokesman of the French military said on Wednesday that France provided weapons, munitions and food to Libyan opposition fighters in the Western Mountains in early June to prevent troops loyal to Muammar Qaddafi from overrunning the region.
Citing unidentified sources, Le Figaro newspaper said on Wednesday France had parachuted “large amounts” of weapons, including rocket launchers, assault rifles, machine guns and anti-tank missiles into the Jebel Nafusa region.
The move, it said, was an effort to give impetus to an opposition push toward Qaddafi’s stronghold in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
“There were humanitarian drops because the humanitarian situation was worsening and at one point it seemed the security situation was threatening civilians who could not defend themselves,” armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard told Reuters.
“France therefore also sent equipment allowing them to defend themselves, comprising light weapons and munitions,” he said, adding that the drop in early June had included medicine and food.
The Figaro said France’s decision to send arms had been taken without consulting its NATO partners and it quoted a high-level source saying it was “because there was no other way to proceed.” Officials at the Foreign Ministry official said it did not handle operational affairs and could not comment on the report.
