Arab League meets with world leaders on Libya

(CAIRO) - The Arab League was meeting at its Cairo headquarters on Thursday with an array of world leaders in a bid to hammer out a solution to the crisis in Libya, including a ceasefire, officials said.

The meeting was chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa and attended by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, the head of the Organisation of Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, and African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping.

"This conference aims to examine the solutions and political issues of the Libyan crisis and to coordinate the efforts of these various organisations," Egyptian state news agency MENA quoted Ahmed Bin Halli, deputy secretary general of the Arab League, as saying.

The Cairo meeting comes the day after the Doha gathering of the Contact Group on Libya, which is responsible for monitoring international intervention in the north African nation.

The meeting decided to set up a fund to aid the rebellion, as well as reiterating the need for Moamer Kadhafi to step down.

Noureddine Mezni, a spokesman for Ping, said that "an international mechanism to implement a ceasefire" in Libya was being discussed at the meeting.

"The key now is an immediate ceasefire. Thereafter, we suggest an inclusive, comprehensive dialogue and a transitional period during which the Libyan people will choose its own leaders," Mezni told reporters.

"Among the ideas discussed for a mechanism to implement a ceasefire is the deployment of an international force" to interpose between the two sides, he said.

"A military solution is ruled out, and supplying arms to any party only means more destruction during what is already a humanitarian catastrophe," he added.