Qaddafi has "lost legitimacy to rule" and should step down 'now': Obama

Washington, Feb 27 (ANI): US President Barack Obama has said that Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi "has lost the legitimacy to rule" Libya because he is only using "mass violence" to cling on to power, and asked him step down immediately.

A White House account of a telephone call between Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that the President had told Merkel that "when a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," The New York Times reports.

Later on Saturday, the United Nations Security Council had voted unanimously to impose sanctions, including a travel ban and the freezing of assets, on Qaddafi and other Libyan leaders.

Amid ongoing unrest in Libya, the United States has already shut down its embassy in Tripoli, and also imposed unilateral sanctions against the oil rich country.

It froze billions of dollars of Libyan government assets and announced that it would do the same with the assets of high-ranking Libyan officials who took part in the violent crackdown, the paper added. (ANI)