William Hague and Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the NATO meeting Photo: GETTY
Amid growing fears of a military stalemate in Libya, Britain and France have exhorted other Nato members including Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, to provide warplanes and other "strike assets".
Only Canada, Norway, Denmark and Belgium are supporting the Anglo-French ground attack operations, which Nato estimates is at least ten warplanes short of what is required.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, claimed to be making "a bit of progress", and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato Secretary General said he was "hopeful" that other members will do more. But a Nato ministers' meeting in Berlin ended on Friday night without any firm commitments of new deployments.
Spain on Thursday rejected requests to do more, and yesterday Italy said it would not go beyond allowing Britain and France to use Italian airbases.
"We have done enough," said Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. "An engagement that goes beyond our current commitment would not make sense."
Mr Berlusconi was speaking after it emerged that ENI, the Italian oil company, was preparing to ship oil from Gaddafi-controlled terminals for the first time since air strikes began. Continued
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