MOSCOW. Oct 24 (Interfax) - There would have been far less bloodshed in Libya if Western countries had accepted an African Union initiative for settling the Libyan crisis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has argued.
"Unfortunately, the initiative of the African Union for organizing negotiations between [the regime of Muammar Gaddafi and the opposition] was not supported, primarily by Western countries, which had by then apparently embarked on a course of defeating the Gaddafi regime by armed force," Lavrov said in an interview with radio stations Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow), Golos Rossii (Voice of Russia) and Radio Rossii (Radio of Russia) on Friday.
"I think that, if the African initiative had been taken up and put to use, Gaddafi would still have gone as a result, but that goal would have been achieved at the cost of a lot fewer human lives," Lavrov said.