DEAUVILLE, FRANCE: The Group of Eight summit (G8) world powers threw their weight behind the Arab Spring on Friday, intensifying the pressure on Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi and pledging billions for fledgling democracies.
The West's drive to oust Qaddafi was boosted on the military front, with France and Britain vowing a new phase of operations, and on the diplomatic, with Russia joining calls for him to step down and head into exile.
Meanwhile, summit host President Nicholas Sarkozy of France was able, by totalling up a range of international offers of aid and loans, to promise the Arab world $40 billion (28 billion euros) for development and democracy.
"Democracy lays the best path to peace, stability, prosperity, shared growth and development," the leaders declared, after meeting with prime ministers from post-revolutionary Tunisia and Egypt seeking support for reform.
Presidents and prime ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States had met in the French resort of Deauville on the second and final day of the annual G8 summit.
They took a tough line with the regimes resisting pro-democratic revolts, warning Libya and Syria to halt the violent repression of their own peoples.
"We demand the immediate cessation of the use of force against civilians by the Libyan regime forces as well as the cessation of all incitement to hostility and violence against the civilian population. Qaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfil their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," the statement warned.
Sarkozy said there would be an intensification of military action against Qaddafi and Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that Britain would send Apache helicopter gunships to target Libyan forces at close quarters.
US President Barack Obama said after talks with Sarkozy that we have made progress on our Libya campaign, referring to NATO's air strikes in support of rebel forces, and vowed: "We are joined in resolve to finish the job."
Russia changes stance
Ahead of the summit, Russia, had criticised the NATO air war on Qaddafi’s regime, was seen as reluctant to take a hard line, but it too toughened its stance on Libya during the Deauville meeting.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said "Yes, we are ready to admit, he needs to go. We believe that Colonel Qaddafi has forfeited legitimacy due to his actions indeed we need to help him go."
President Dmitry Medvedev said later Russia would send its senior Africa envoy to the Libyan rebel bastion of Benghazi to contact the insurgents, and had offered to mediate an end to the conflict.
Russia nevertheless insisted on watering down an ultimatum to Syria, obliging its partners to drop a threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions in favour of a more general warning of further measures.
Development aid for Tunisia and Egypt
The G8 was expected to pledge billions in aid to help Tunisia and Egypt along the path towards democracy after their successful uprisings earlier this year.
Egypt wants between 10 and 12 billion dollars in aid by the middle of next year, Tunisia 25 billion dollars over the next five years.
Ayed said foreign and finance ministers from the region would meet before July to break down the programme, designed to kickstart economic development and anchor democratic reform, in more detail.
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