Libya rebels win key backing as allies meet in Paris

PARIS (AFP) - Libya's new rebel rulers won the backing of the once sceptical Russia and China and of their reluctant neighbour Algeria on Thursday, as the West found them billions of dollars in frozen cash.

These diplomatic breakthroughs welcomed the National Transitional Council into the international fold as France and Britain played host to senior world figures at a Paris conference of "friends of Libya".

Forty-two years to the day since Moamer Kadhafi came to power in a coup, Russia -- which opposed NATO's military support for the rebels' battle to overthrow him -- recognised the NTC as Libya's "ruling authority".

China, which also had reservations about the air campaign, did not go so far, but said it "respects the choice made by the Libyan people and attaches importance to the significant position and role played by the NTC.

"We are willing to maintain close contact with it and push forward the smooth progress of China-Libyan relations," the foreign ministry said.

Of the major powers, only African Union heavyweight South Africa continued to snub the NTC. President Jacob Zuma boycotted the talks and said his country was "not happy" with NATO's decision to bomb Kadhafi's forces.

Russian and Chinese recognition were major diplomatic victories for the fledgling regime, but the Algerian turnabout may prove of more immediate practical help in cutting off a Kadhafi escape route

Libya's larger neighbour has been accused of supplying Kadhafi with arms and, after members of the fallen leader's family fled there, it was seen as a likely escape route for the strongman and his loyal sons.

But Algeria's Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, in Paris for the conference, welcomed the NTC promise to set up a "government representative of all regions" and added: "When it has done so, we'll recognise it."

Medelci told Europe 1 radio that he had spoken by telephone to NTC number two Mahmud Jibril and planned to hold talks later Thursday in Paris with the movement's president Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

"The hypothesis that Mr Kadhafi could come knocking on our door was never considered," he insisted.

France is glad Algeria has agreed to attend the talks, but Foreign Minister Alain Juppe expressed regret the country had yet to recognise the NTC.

"Algeria has had an ambiguous attitude throughout this affair, that's the least you can say," he told RTL radio, adding that he had spoken to Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

"He assured me he had never sent anything other that humanitarian aid. I hope that checks out," he said, during an interview in which he also confirmed that France had unfrozen 1.5 billion euros in Libyan assets.

Algeria, a former French colony, shares with Kadhafi a distrust of Western interference in North Africa and is concerned that the rebels that overthrew him include Islamists sympathetic to militants within its own borders.

According to the Algerian daily El-Watan's online edition, Kadhafi has tried to negotiate with Algeria to enter the country from Ghadames, a Libyan border town, but Bouteflika "refused to take the call."

One of Kadhafi's sons, Saadi, said he was ready to surrender, but his more powerful brother Seif al-Islam's message was one of defiance.

"We are fine. The leadership is fine and the leader is fine," Seif al-Islam told Syria-based Arrai Oruba television -- the crumbling regime's mouthpiece -- in an audio message late Wednesday.

"I am talking to you from a suburb of Tripoli. We want to reassure the Libyan people that we are still here," he declared, promising to recapture the capital and warning against any attack on his father's hometown of Sirte.

There was no word from Kadhafi himself, and NTC vice chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghogha retorted that Seif is "delusional".

Thursday's conference in the French capital, which was to be attended by delegates from 60 countries, will discuss funding for Libya as well as police training and diplomatic recognition for its new rulers.

"There are tens of billions of euros in frozen assets. The Americans have unblocked theirs and the British, French and Germans are doing the same," Juppe told RTL radio.

Juppe said he had "no knowledge" of a letter published by the French daily Liberation, which apparently showed the NTC telling the Emir of Qatar in April that it had agreed to give France control of a third of Libya's oil.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton promised to help Libya with economic and humanitarian aid and programmes to train police and collect the weapons scattered across the country in private hands.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Paris to sound out the rebels on what officials in Washington describe as their "enormous" needs as they try to establish a new government in Tripoli.