This Is How the West Tried to Persuade Gaddafi to Give Up Power

The U.K. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has released the transcripts of two phone calls between former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the late leader of Libya, in which Blair delicately tries to get Gaddafi give up power.

“If you have a safe place to go, you should go there because this will not end peacefully.” said Blair, who was acting on behalf of the U.S., Russia, the E.U and the U.N. as a Middle East envoy.

The transcripts, from Feb. 2011, are a rare window into the West’s attempt in 2011 to de-escalate the civil war in Libya, by trying to convince Gaddafi to leave his country peacefully.