Mr Hague, the foreign secretary, who on Wednesday
expelled the remaining staff of the Libyan embassy as Britain
granted political recognition to the country’s opposition, said that the
democratic gains made during the six-month series of revolutions risk being
for naught thanks to sectarian violence and struggling economies.
"We mustn’t expect each country to be neatly done in six months. It’s not a
computer game that comes to an end when you get bored," he said in an
interview with The Times.
He said the future of Egypt
would decide the extent to which democracy would flow across the region,
calling it "the single most important piece of the jigsaw in the whole Arab
Spring".
Mr Hague spoke amid increasingly frantic diplomatic moves five months into a
bombing campaign against the Libyan
dictatorship. The foreign secretary said Britain could free up frozen funds
for the Libyan opposition.
He said the opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) would be invited to
send a diplomatic envoy to take over the Libyan People’s Bureau in
Knightsbridge.
"The Prime Minister and I have decided that the United Kingdom recognises
and will deal with the National Transitional Council as the sole
governmental authority in Libya," Mr Hague said.
"In line with that decision we summoned the Libyan charg d’affaires to
the Foreign Office today and informed him that he and the other regime
diplomats must leave the UK.
"We no longer recognise them as representatives of the Libyan government."
The announcement added to concerns that the Government was groping for
measures after the failure to oust Col Gaddafi despite five months of Nato
attacks.
In Tripoli, Khaled Kaaim, Gaddafi's deputy foreign minister, denounced
Britain's move as "irresponsible, illegal and in violation of British
and international laws."
Col Bob Stewart, a Conservative MP and former UN commander in Bosnia, said
that only political or diplomatic efforts could surmount the military
failures of the campaign.
He told the BBC: "It may not be diplomatically or politically a
stalemate, but on the ground it looks like what I would term a military
stalemate."
The announcement that the current charg d’affaires was going brought a new
twist to the long-running controversy over the mission. As far back as 1980
the embassy was in the headlines after the ambassador publicly threatened
two dissidents.
It was closed in 1984 after its officials shot Pc Yvonne Fletcher.
It is believed there are eight staff at the bureau. The charg d’affaires
Khaled Benshaban and the other staff will be given a few days to leave the
country.
The Foreign Office took the decision after a meeting of the National Security
Council on Libya on Monday.
Mr Hague said Britain was unfreezing assets worth f91 million to the Arabian
Gulf Oil Company, which is effectively controlled by the NTC. The funds
would help it to provide basic supplies of fuel and wages.
Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, had blocked earlier attempts to fund the
opposition with frozen funds on the grounds that Britain continued to
maintain diplomatic relations with Libya.
The British embassy in Tripoli was shut after the Nato bombing campaign
against the regime was launched in mid-March. After the embassy was
vandalised in May, Omar Jelban, the Libyan ambassador to the UK was
expelled.
The United States said it was reviewing a request by Libya's rebels to open an
embassy in Washington, following Britain's decision.
