Clinton meets the Libyan opposition–again

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Libyan opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril on the sidelines of a London conference on Libya Tuesday. Meanwhile, world powers endorsed the opposition group selling oil on international markets.

Clinton held a closed-door meeting with Jibril in Paris earlier this month. But unlike Tuesday's meeting, which was held at the British Foreign Office, no photos of that earlier and more tentative meeting were released.

The 40 some U.S., European and Arab leaders attending the London Libya summit Tuesday also moved closer to granting the Libyan Transitional National Council the right to access some of the billions of dollars of Libyan regime assets frozen in accounts abroad, the Financial Times reports, as some leaders said they were open to a potential exile deal for Muammar Gadhafi:

Libya's opposition Transitional National Council significantly boosted its relations with world powers confronting Colonel Muammer Gaddafi on Tuesday, winning the right to sell Libyan oil on international markets and getting potential access to hitherto frozen regime assets.

As more than 40 nations convened in London for an international summit on the future of Libya, Qatar formally announced that it would facilitate the sale of Libyan oil in rebel held areas, delivering humanitarian goods in return. [...]

The deal between Qatar and the Libyan rebels over oil sales is a significant boost for the rebels. Opposition officials have said they could boost production to about 400,000 b/d, which, at current prices of $115 per barrel, could be worth $1.4bn a month in exports.

A senior US official also said Washington could discuss releasing $33bn in frozen Libyan assets to the opposition in the near future. [...]

Mrs Clinton said that the United Nations special envoy to Libya, Abdel-Elah Mohamed Al-Khatib, would travel to Libya soon to discuss Colonel Gaddafi's future role with regime figures. She said Mr al-Khatib would explore whether "a real ceasefire," could be implemented and "to look for a political resolution that could include his [Col Gaddafi] leaving the country."

William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary, also suggested that he was not opposed to efforts by Italy to establish whether it might be possible to arrange for Col. Gaddafi to go into exile.

The Persian Gulf state of Qatar has agreed to host the first meeting of the so-called Contact Group on Libya announced at the London conference Tuesday.

(Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Libyan Transitional National Council member Mahmoud Jibril at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth office in London, Tuesday, March 29, 2011: AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool.)