20110421
presstv
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has promised the Libyan opposition to step up airstrikes on the North African country.

"We will intensify the strikes," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a meeting with Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the head of Libya's National Transitional Council, in Paris on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

The visiting Libyan delegation has also asked France and its other Western allies to help the revolutionaries with arms so that they can form an “official army.”

France and Britain have dispatched some military advisors to the opposition-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya to help with the revolutionaries' military organization, communications and logistics. They however, ruled out the possibility of deploying ground troops to the crisis-stricken country.

Italy has also announced plans to send military advisors to eastern Libya, but warned deploying ground troops could prolong the NATO-led war in the country.

However, European security experts say Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi has strengthened his position in the central and western parts of the country, signaling an interminable standoff in Libya.

British Prime Minister David Cameron made phone conversations with his Italian and US counterparts on Wednesday, emphasizing the “urgent importance of placing continued military and diplomatic pressure on the Gaddafi regime."

Meanwhile, the European Union has urged a political solution to the crisis in Libya, saying that “Gaddafi regime must cede power and allow the Libyan people to determine their own future.”