The NTC has given Syrian diplomats from the Assad regime 72 hours to quit the country and has formally handed over . . .[restrict]the embassy in Tripoli to the opposition Syrian National Council.
Libya’s move follows Sunday’s expulsion of all the Syrian regime’s diplomats by the new Tunisian government.
The Syrian embassy in the capital has in fact been in the hands of supporters of the Syrian rebellion since last Saturday, when it was stormed by hundreds of exiled Syrians and Libyan supporters . The Syrian ambassador was summoned Thursday to the Foreign Ministry and told that he and his staff at the Tripoli embassy and Benghazi consulate had three days to pack up and leave with their families.
Meanwhile foreign minister Ashour Bin Khayal has said that the NTC could not stop Libyans from going to Syria to fight alongside the Free Syrian Army. On Monday the first three deaths were reported among a contingent of over 100 Libyans who entered Syria via Lebanon in late December. “If people want to go and fight with the Syrians” Khayal told a reporter from the UK’s Financial Times, “no one is going to prevent them. Officially we do not have this stance, but we cannot control the desire of the people”.
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