Allies vow to finish Libya job, Russia joins fray

DEAUVILLE: The US and France are committed to finishing the job in Libya, President Barack Obama said on Friday at a G8 summit that saw Russia finally join explicit calls for Moamer Kadhafi to go.

Russia's dramatic shift -- and an offer to mediate -- came as British Prime Minister David Cameron said the NATO mission against Kadhafi was entering a new phase with the deployment of helicopter gunships to the conflict.

"We are joined in our resolve to finish the job," Obama said after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the G8 summit of industrialised democracies in the French resort of Deauville.

But the US leader warned that the "UN mandate of civilian protection cannot be accomplished when Kadhafi remains in Libya directing his forces in acts of aggression against the Libyan people."

G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US called in their final statement for Kadhafi to step down after over 40 years, in the face of pro-democracy protests turned full-fledged armed revolt.

"Kadhafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," it said.

Ahead of the summit, Russia -- which has criticised the NATO air war on Kadhafi's regime -- was seen as reluctant to take a hard line, but it too toughened its stance on Libya at the Deauville meeting.

"The world community does not see him as the Libyan leader," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, adding that Kadhafi's departure "would be useful for the country and the Libyan people."

Medvedev said Moscow had offered to mediate an end to the conflict and that the Kremlin would send senior African envoy Mikhail Margelov to the rebel bastion of Benghazi in eastern Libya "imminently". "Everyone believes that it would be useful," Medvedev said. (AFP)