Spain does not see ‘long-term’ Libya intervention: FM

Spain does not see the international intervention in Libya as being a long-term operation, Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez said Sunday.

“It’s a case of operations that are going to take place at any moment depending on the needs and circumstances but of course it is not a question of a long-term (operation),” Jimenez told reporters at a meeting of the ruling Socialist Party in Palencia in northern Spain.

She said she hoped the coalition would “put a brake on the violence” that Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi was exercising “against the citizens of his country,” noting that it was composed not only of NATO members but some Arab countries as well.

Jimenez said this weekend that Spain would take part in military operations against Libya from Sunday with four F-18 fighter aircraft, an in-flight refuelling tanker, a frigate and a submarine.

The aircraft were due to be operational from a base on the Italian island of Sardinia from Sunday.