People close to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have been making contacts with many different interlocutors about the “potential for a transition,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

“There have been numerous and continuing discussions by people close to Gaddafi, and we are aware that those discussions include, among other matters, the potential for a transition,” Clinton told a news conference.

“There is not a clear way forward yet,” the chief US diplomat said after talks of the International Contact Group on Libya in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi.

But she said the international community must over the next month, when more talks on Libya are held in Istanbul, make “sure that all of those contacts are understood and evaluated because they occur with many different interlocutors.”

World powers, she said, then “must begin the very difficult but necessary work with both the (rebel National Transitional Council) and the Gaddafi regime to try to bring about the kind of transition from power” that is needed.