JNN 06 April 2011 : Italy has decided to recognize the Libyan National Council in the eastern city of Benghazi as “the only legitimate interlocutor” in the country.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini made the remark on Monday in a meeting with a prominent member of the Libyan opposition in Rome.

“Italy has decided to recognize the council,” Frattini said.

Frattini added that the only solution to the Libyan crisis is the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi and his family, stressing the need to continue US-led airstrikes on Libya.

Frattini dismissed the Libyan regime’s proposal to have Gaddafi’s oldest son Seif al-Islam oversee a transition as unacceptable.

The council insists that the entire Gaddafi family must leave before there can be any truce with regime.

“People thought he was a reformer but since the revolution began, he has shown his true colors He is a carbon copy of his father,” the council’s spokesman said.

The 30-member body was established in the eastern city of Benghazi by revolutionary forces following the liberation of several eastern cities.

The council, headed by Libya’s former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil — who was among the first high-profile Libyan figures to defect from the Gaddafi regime following the brutal crackdown on opposition protesters — plans to lead the country to an election.

This is while Libyan revolutionary forces have advanced towards the key oil town of Brega, which was the scene of a fierce exchange of fire over the past several days, without any resistance from the regime.

Forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi fled before revolutionaries came within eight kilometers from Brega.

On Sunday, the regime forces ambushed revolutionaries in the same area forcing them to retreat