Prime Minister and Libya's Jalil held talks

Foreign minister Tonio Borg has confirmed that direct telephone contact was made between Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the president of the so called rebel council or Libyan transitional government.

Borg said at a press conference on the last three years of the Gonzi II government today that he had meet Mr Jalil at the margins of the European Council’s foreign policy and general affairs meeting in Luxembourg.

“We discussed relations between the two sides,” Borg said, but stopped short of declaring the formal recognition of the rebel council.

Borg said this decision would be taken in due course “and within the national interest”.

He added that so far only three states out of the United Nations’ 192 states, namely France, Italy and Qatar.

Borg also said the Maltese government had formally informed the UN that the island will serve as a hub for the sending of humanitarian aid to Misurata.

Greece has meanwhile provided the island of Crete as a hub for aid to be sent to Benghazi.

A preparatory meeting on the upcoming 5+5 talks of Mediterranean states in Malta is to be held next month, in Rome, where Libya’s participation will be discussed. “It’s not looking likely,” Borg said.

MaltaToday also solicited Borg’s comments on Wikileaks revelations that Ambassador Joseph Licari, who represents Malta at the Council of Europe, had “a history of bad relations” with human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg.

“I cannot verify things that are not confirmed, since Wikileaks issues the opinions and reflections of ambassador… God knows what they write about me,” Borg said, brushing aside the question as to whether he had brought the matter up with Licari.

In a confidential cable from the US embassy in Strasbourg released on Wikileaks, US consul-general Vincent Carver says Joseph Licari – a veteran ambassador to the Council of Europe, the most authoritative human rights body for European countries – was one of the ambassadors who “have a history of bad relations with Hammarberg.”

In the cable dated September 2009, he said Hammarberg was “criticized by a few ambassadors for having written in June to all COE member states calling on them to consider accepting detainees from Guantanamo. The Maltese Ambassador (one of those criticizing Hammarberg) told us privately that Hammarberg thinks he is 'God’s gift to the world’.”