20110418
reuters

ROME (Reuters) - A meeting of Western and Middle Eastern states in Rome next month will seek ways of enabling oil from Libyan rebel areas to be sold on world markets, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Tuesday.

The comments underline the uncertainty created by United Nations sanctions, which were intended to constrain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi but which have prevented rebels from selling oil to raise funds themselves.

Speaking after meeting Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the main Libyan rebel council, Frattini said the so-called Libya contact group of European and Middle Eastern countries, the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League, would meet in Rome in early May.

The group would look at ways of freeing up frozen assets belonging to Gaddafi and would also be working on means "of allowing the sale of oil products, produced in Cyrenaica by producers and suppliers to international buyers with transparent financial instruments," he said.

"On this, we will be asking for the adoption of a decision in Rome," he said.

The United States, Britain, France and Qatar are among countries urging the sale of oil from eastern Libya, which includes the area referred to as Cyrenaica, where the rebels have established their stronghold.

So far, the rebels have only been able to export small quantities of oil with the help of Qatar, which along with France and Italy, was among the first countries to recognise the rebel Provisional Transitional National Council.

Jalil thanked Italy for its support and reiterated that a future rebel government would uphold all existing treaties and commercial agreements with foreign partners and he said early supporters would be regarded particularly favourably.

"All future economic agreements will be especially directed towards those who have supported us today and who have been on our side in this delicate phase," he said.

"There will be strong cooperation and friendship with Italy, Qatar, France in the first instance," he said. "After them, will come all our other friends, the United States, Great Britain which have supported us, but each according to how much they have supported us today."