Saturday, April 16, 2011

Canada: No More Jets to Libya Before Election

OTTAWA - Canada will not consider increasing its forces helping NATO to pressure Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi to quit until after a May 2 election, the prime minister said April 15.
"We continue to discuss this with allies, but we've been clear, we are not putting Canadian soldiers on the ground, and in terms of requests for additional participation, we will not make those kinds of commitments during an election campaign," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during a campaign stop.
"To make any kind of additional commitment would require the parliament of Canada to be sitting and to be discussing these matters."
Nearly a month of coalition strikes have so far failed to shift the balance of power in Libya.
The French and British called for allies to contribute more jets to the mission, but the United States has resisted pressure to return its warplanes to the frontline in Libya.
Washington pulled back around 50 combat planes from Libyan operations last week after handing over control of the mission to NATO, although since then they took part in some missions to take out Gadhafi's air defense systems.
Currently, only six out of 28 nations are conducting air strikes, while France and Britain carry out half of them. The other half are conducted by Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Canada.

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