EU Ready to Send In Military to Libya for UN Humanitarian Mission

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs, British Catherine Ashton, gives a press briefing during an European Foreign ministers council. EPA/BGNES

The European Union has declared its readiness to send a military force into Libya if it is requested by the UN to back up a humanitarian mission on the ground.

In a communique on Monday, two days after a Western-led coalition started strikes against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in Operation Odyssey Dawn, the Foreign Ministers of the EU said that the Union can protect the humanitarian operations in Libya if the UN asks it to do so.

The EU is ready to act within a general political security and defense mission in order to safeguard international humanitarian efforts in Libya with a relief operation coordinated by the UN, says the text.

The UN Security Council is to hold a closed-door meeting on Monday, diplomats in New York said. The meeting will consider a Libyan demand for an emergency Security Council session, the diplomats told reporters.

The NATO military alliance will be ready to back up the international intervention in Libya "within "a few days", France's Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Jupp? said on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

Juppe declared the efforts so far, organized by the US, France and the UK, a success.

"If we had done nothing, Benghazi [the rebel stronghold] would be a bloodbath," he said as cited by RFI.

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