Obama, TNC's Jalil to discuss transition in Libya

President Barack Obama on Tuesday will meet in New York with the chairman of the Transitional National Council (TNC) in Libya, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, which will be followed by a high-level, multilateral meeting on Libya, where Obama will deliver remarks, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said. In a briefing with reporters Monday evening, aboard "Air Force One," en route to New York for the General Assembly session, Rhodes said U.S. officials have put in a lot of effort in recent weeks to get international support for post-Qaddafi Libya, "and that is going to be the focus of these meetings." "With our strong support, the TNC was recently seated as a member of the General Assembly as a representative of the Libyan government," he noted. Similarly, a recently approved UN Security Council resolution provided a mandate for a UN presence in Tripoli to help with the post-Qaddafi transition, as well as a gradual lifting of sanctions so that some Libyan funds that have been frozen can be made available to the TNC, he said. The meetings on Tuesday are "an effort to mark an extraordinary achievement by the UN-led process that the U.S. has supported," Rhodes said. UN Security Council resolution 1973 was "a rare and historic moment where all necessary measures were provided to protect civilians," he added. "And the UN sanction action led to averting a massacre, and the UN played a key role in the contact group that helped plan for a post-Qaddafi Libya." The meetings also will be about "receiving the TNC's plans for an inclusive transition in Libya, and also about underscoring the critical role that the UN is going to play as a body that can help provide expertise on the ground in Tripoli and other places as Libya moves into a post-Qaddafi government," Rhodes said. "Also, it is a chance for the international community to express its support for that effort." Afterward, Obama will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. They will discuss the transition to Afghan security forces and the Afghan government, Rhodes said. Obama also will discuss with Karzai the negotiations surrounding the strategic partnership declaration between the United States and Afghanistan, "and our alignment on the political process in Afghanistan as we head to some important conferences later this year in Istanbul and Bonn," he added. Later in the afternoon, Obama will have a bilateral meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Topics of that meeting will include "Arab Spring related issues -- Turkey has played a key role in Libya and in Syria; issues related to missile defense -- Turkey has agreed to host a U.S. radar; and, of course, issues related to Middle East peace," Rhodes said.