Speaking today in an interview with DPA, a top envoy for the East Libyan rebel government announced that Moammar Gadhafi could never be allowed to remain in Libya, and would have to be ousted as a condition of leaving power.

This is the opposite of the stance taken for months, and tt was just two weeks ago that East Libyan Prime Minister Mustafa Jalil insisted that Gadhafi and his entire family would be allowed to stay.

Jalil’s comments came with considerable conditions, including that he would be placed under the control of the rebel military, and that they would decide where in the country he would get to stay. The new envoy insists that offer has now expired.

And indeed, he downplayed the prospect of peace talks primarily because of this new demand, saying that the talks “didn’t last long” because the Gadhafi negotiators were not willing to agree in advance to the “departure of Gadhafi and his children.”

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