Former Croatian president Stipe Mesic who has close ties Muammar Gaddafi said yesterday that the Libyan leader told him he was ready to step down from political life if Nato ended airstrikes.
"I can confirm that colonel Gaddafi is ready to retreat completely from political and public life with a firm engagement that we would impede the setting up of a multi party system but on the condition that the Nato airstrikes cease," Mesic said in a statement quoted by Hina news agency.
The former president added that he had a "personal verbal message" from Gaddafi last week with the offer and added he told the Chinese, Russian and American ambassadors to Croatia about it on Monday.
"The authorities in Tripoli have tried to get this message out via all the available channels to countries that have played a crucial role in the organisation and the operations in Libya," Mesic added in the statement.
Foreign governments which had hesitated to take sides, among them Gaddafi's Arab neighbours, Russia and China also made clear his four decades of absolute power were over.
A US State Department spokeswoman said Libyans who said they represented Gaddafi were making "more desperate" efforts to negotiate with the United States in the last 24 to 48 hours.
Washington did not take any of them seriously because they did not indicate Gaddafi's willingness to step down, she added.
Mesic was president of Croatia from 2000 to 2010. He was also the last president of Yugoslavia before it fell apart, which had longstanding ties with Gaddafi ever since Libya and Yugoslavia were champions of the Non-aligned Movement.