BEIJING: Chinese arms firms offered to sell weapons worth about 200 million dollar to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s beleaguered forces in July, two newspapers reported, compounding pressure on Beijing’s brittle ties with the rebels who have ousted him.
Following an earlier report in the Globe and Mail, the New York Times reported on Monday that documents found abandoned in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, indicated that Chinese companies offered to sell rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles and other arms to Gaddafi’s forces, despite bans on such sales.
”We have hard evidence of deals going on between China and Gaddafi, and we have all the documents to prove it,” a rebel military spokesman, Abdulrahman Busin, told the Times.
Reuters could not verify the reports or the documents cited, and some officials told the Times report they were sceptical or uncertain.
A ”senior NATO diplomat in Brussels discounted the report as highly unlikely”, and members of a United Nations overseeing sanctions on Libya said ”nothing about arms dealings with China had been brought to their attention”, said the Times report.
China’s Foreign Ministry said that members of Gaddafi’s government had come to China and held talks with a ”handful” of Chinese arms companies without the knowledge of the government.
”After the passing of resolution 1970 by the Security Council, we notified relevant government departments to strictly implement it,” ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing in Beijing. ”We have clarified with the relevant agencies that in July the Gaddafi government sent personnel to China without the knowledge of the Chinese government and who engaged in contact with a handful of people from the companies concerned,” she added. (UNI)