Gaddafi rejects UN peace talk plan

Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi has reiterated that he would not negotiate with revolutionaries to end a five-month chaos in the country. A U.N. plan proposes a ceasefire and a power-sharing government with no role for Gaddafi, a diplomat said.

The special envoy to Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, a former Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, had met both with both regime and rebel officials several times, Reuters reported. On another tract, Libya's foreign minister reportedly met with his Russian counterpart to discuss Gaddafi's exit from the country.

But in public, Gaddafi remained defiant. "There will be no talks between me and them until Judgment Day," Gaddafi broadcast in a speech to supporters in his hometown of Sirte.

The revolutionaries "must understand that their desperate fight is a lost cause. They must return to their bases," Gaddafi was quoted as saying by AFP on Thursday. "They cannot defeat us. They will be defeated and they will go home empty-handed," he added.

This week the rebels have declared advances on several fronts, including the capture of a loyalist general outside the town of Zliten, 160 km east of Tripoli.

But they've been stalled in the strategic oil town of Brega, despite mounting NATO air strikes on Gaddafi forces there. At least 72 opposition fighters have died and 623 others have been injured in the push to take Brega, 240 km southwest of the rebel capital Benghazi, Al Jazeera reported.