The British government on Wednesday announced the expulsion of all Libyan diplomats here after deciding to recognise the rebels-led National Transitional Council (NTC) as the “sole governmental authority”.

There were dramatic scenes outside the Libyan embassy as anti-Qadhafi activists tried to replace the official green flag with their own but the police kept them at bay.

Earlier, Libyan charge d'affaires Khaled Benshaban, who has been running the embassy since the Ambassador was expelled in May, was summoned to the Foreign Office and told that all the Qadhafi government diplomats must leave.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain would deal with NTC “on the same basis as other governments around the world”. The NTC, he said, had shown its commitment to a “more open and democratic Libya... in stark contrast to Gaddafi whose brutality against the Libyan people has stripped him of all legitimacy”.

“We no longer recognise them [Libyan diplomats] as the representatives of the Libyan government and we are inviting the National Transitional Council to appoint a new Libyan diplomatic envoy to take over the Libyan embassy in London,” he told reporters. The British decision followed similar moves by America and France.
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