Libyan opposition announced on Friday they were ready to stop hostilities if the embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi quit power as African leaders discussed the conflict.

Libyan opposition announced on Friday they were ready to stop hostilities if the embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi quit power as African leaders discussed the conflict.

"If we see that Gaddafi withdraws, we are ready to stop (the hostilities) and negotiate with our brothers who are around Gaddafi", National Transitional Council representative Mansour Safy Al-Nasr said on the sidelines of the African Union summit in the Equatorial Guinea capital.
But the rebels would not retreat, "not this time", he said without excluding that the forces would take the capital Tripoli.
"If military operations advance to surround Tripoli, he will accept (to leave). Gaddafi is isolated. He is in his bunker. He cannot move, he does not have a life".

"The troops are advancing," he added.
Asked if he thought the conflict would be ended through a political or a military means, he answered: "We are ready for anything."

Al-Nasr also dismissed an African Union statement last week that Gaddafi had agreed to keep out of negotiations. "He never said it," he said.

An African Union panel mediating in the Libyan conflict is proposing a roadmap out of the fighting that would include a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, transition period, reforms towards democracy and elections.

The five-leader panel presented the plan to counterparts at closed door talks on the first day of their summit Thursday but the meeting ended in the early hours of Friday morning with no consensus.
The talks were to resume at 10:00 am (0900 GMT).

Some officials said pre-conditions that Gaddafi should quit for a political solution to be reached should be brought to the negotiating table.