whatever -- what everyone thought was impossible. i know over this coming year we will again do what everyone might think impossible. again, we are determined to turn the tide of history. we have freed ourselves of our recent best, excited for our future, and grateful to our friends and partners who helped us come this far. we are now proud to call ourselves your partners, two nations which believe in the same fundamental values of freedom, equality, opportunity, and success. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much, prime minister, for this very encouraging words. we're going to open up the floor for about 30 minutes of questioning. before we do that, if i can take the opportunity myself to ask the first one. i think we heard some very encouraging words about libya's commitment to democracy and to a pluralistic society moving forward. and indeed, this has been a concern i think of many, both in the region and here of the cause of pluralism in the arab world. will the arab world finally be able to put in place a system that would ensure a pluralistic society, or will it simply replace one set of autocrat regimes by another. and i think your words have assured many of your commitment

to do this. but of course the road is not easy in a region and a country that has not known democracy for a long time. and i hope you can maybe shed more light about reasons for your confidence that indeed the emerging system will be resilient to any efforts to impose once again one set of rules and one set of thought as opposed to political diversity and cultural diversity. >> this is a question coming out of an electrical engineer. >> we're both electrical engineers, by the way. >> well, you know, when i first got to be directly exposed to the process of our young men and

women revolting against gadhafi's regime, it was something that gave me a feeling i've never had before. many of us here, in fact in this room were involved in the opposition against gadhafi, and we went through different experiences, fantastic experiences, in fact. we tried different ways and means, but this was different. it's not a group. it started with a small group, but it ended upbringing everybody together. it started with young men and women, and it brought everybody together. and it was amazing, you know.

when i first was in the western mountains, looking at who those young men and women, they were really young -- young and determined. and it's amazing. they just felt it deep inside, they felt that yeah, they could do it. first time i see a large group of young men and women in libya, in fact even in the arab world. it's very unfortunate, and i hate to see this, but this can do attitude was not there. this -- this case i could see it and i could feel it. and i asked them, look, what do you need? what is missing here? there were, you know, still -- tripoli was not even the mountains, the hills were not liberated yet. of course, the east part was.

and they said, look, we just need to get going. they simply could not wait. with that spirit, i tell you, i guarantee you they would not let go with what they have earned. it was not given to them. it was not simply a group of us, you know, other men and women telling them what to do. it was them. and this is the resource that will build libya and guarantees that it is a test to be a democracy. it can't be anything else. and you know, one of the reasons

why we've been having a little bit of difficulty trying to reintegrate these young men and women into the defense ministry and interior ministry, and i mean the real ones is the fact that they want to make sure that democracy prevails. they tell you, look, we're not interested in anything. we don't need money. we don't need nothing but to make sure that we do have real democracy. so i don't know if this is the answer you were looking for, but i guarantee you this is different. i've never seen anything like it. in my life, and i don't know everything, but i think i do a little bit. know a little bit about a few things. sorry. >> thank you. let's open it up, please. please keep it a short question. we have a lot of interest and a lot of questions, i'm sure, and not too much time.

>> my name is peter with capital intel group. from somebody who has looked at libya from the outside, and i've just been recently traveling, quite often to tripoli and libya, and one of the things that strikes someone when you go to tripoli is there is amazing intellectual capital. you have budding entrepreneurs. this country is going to do miracles. we're going to go 5g in a year, and there is credible brains. people want to do things. they want to create jobs. and i think some of the things maybe we should be talking about is let's go business to business, you know. what we can do today can be done today on the private sector. everything else will take time. tune insurance has a billion dollars in infrastructure financed from the african development bank. they're moving forward. and libya is really the new market. i say in nine months to a year, this is really going to be the game-changer, not only for the region, but for the west also. thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> okay, please.

>> john hopkins center, transatlantic relation. my question is do you believe that equality between man and women in libya is the right thing, sir, when the transitional government has announced it as a first new law the reintroduction of polygamy in libya? >> all right. let's take one and then allow the prime minister, please. >> my name is aysha with the american turkish council. i was one of the victims of the gadhafi regime. when it first happened 42 years ago, i was a mere child. so i've lived in libya pre, post, and during gadhafi.

and i know exactly what happened. my question is regarding the infrastructure and construction and rebuilding you're going to have in libya. you have asked prime minister adwan recently that you wanted the turkish construction companies to go back. and maybe to this gentleman's question, it's an addition, are you ready for this projects to start, for the business? and is the security something that they can trust, because that's probably the biggest question in the minds of everyone, including the american businesses? thank you. >> please? >> concerning the role of women, i strongly believe in that. i have no -- nothing else to add but tell you that by maybe give you an example. my wife has more degrees than i do. i strongly believe that women

must play a role. it's not an option. and their right role, and we can see here some very smart libyan ladies. one of them is our minister of social affairs. a lady working on her ph.d, fantastic lady. there are some more here. they're all libyan ladies, and they will have a place and presence, and we love to see them do miracles, and i'm sure they will. now polygamy, i don't know if this is the proper place to discuss this, but i'm fine with one, you know. and i'm not going to add another one. but i tell you, if i forget my

title as prime minister and i talk to you as a friend here directly, how many of us have a wife and more than one without being wife? you know, many of us unfortunately do that. but in libya i guarantee you this is not going to be something of a problem. and i don't think this is something that people want to do. i don't know how it came out, but don't worry about it, okay. it's not going to be a problem, i guarantee you this. now projects to starting soon. yes, we want them to come back as soon as possible. security is at 100% proof? no.

close to 100% proof. can it be improved? can it be better? i would say yes. but anywhere you go, security is not 100% proof. this is the time to be in libya, i guarantee you this. and we're looking for long-term relationships, partnerships i should say. rather than just somebody who is coming there for a hit-and-run type situation. so please do, and if we can help you in any way to come back, by all means. >> let me read some questions from the other room. we have an overflow today. so we have people sitting in the other room. and they had to send their questions in writing. i'll read three questions, if i may. one has to do with militia groups in libya who according to

the question are resisting demobilization and appear to be preparing to influence the coming elections. what will the government do to prevent armed groups to play an intimidating role on election day? the second question has to do with the new constitution and whether it will take into account the desire of many libyans in the east for decentralization. and the third asks about if you can describe the transitional government's engagement with libyan civil servant society and the private sector to date, and what can each sector do to support the new transitional government. >> thank you very much. concerning the -- i respectfully do not agree with the word militia, because we don't have militias. we have young men who fought

hard and they had to form groups, and they call themselves brigades. i feel uncomfortable calling them militias, because it's a different concept, i guess. what is happening is that these young men are our brothers, our sons, and we want to take care of them. they did this for us. it's not like, you know, people forming militias because they belong to a certain sect or because they belong to a certain group somewhere. you know, in the -- in misrata, for example, you see people from everywhere in libya. and it is literally like that. people came from the eastern part, the south, the west,

everywhere. and they came to misrata and fought together. everybody thought it's only people from misrata. no. it was from everywhere. in tripoli, the same thing happened. in the mountains, the same thing happened. so it is not militias as we understand militias. so what we did is we said look, we can't just tell them now you did your job, give us back your arms and just get going, you know, with your life. that's not the way we want to do it. we needed to understand and try to explain, and then work with them. so what we did is we said let's have a project, a big project that would try to integrate them, or reintegrate them. and this project is now in

place. it has three dimensions here. one is the interior ministry, those who are interested in security-type work and police work and all that, they can go there. they will give them training. we give them decent salaries, and we give them hope that they can actually progress and develop. and another one is the defense ministry. they can be part of the armed forces. and it's the same thing, you know. we treat them with respect. we give them decent salary, training, et cetera. and then those who right now we have 20,000 of them. and this is going to grow into probably 30,000, maybe even more. we have budgeted for 50 of them, 25 in each group. and then we have formed an

association. we call it that would take those that are not interested neither in the police force nor in the armed forces and give them opportunities to -- for training, scholarships to go to universities outside the country, maybe inside, and/or do postgraduate studies, can go get their masters and ph.d and what have you. and there are many of them like that. or maybe if they are interested in starting a small company, we give them small and medium-sized loans so they can do that. and i think we're being successful. we have about 130,000 of them who registered in this association. and we are going to do whatever it takes to give them the best

we can in terms of offering them a better life. i think this will be -- we are succeeding in this. we actually have sent a thousand of them outside the country, in fact to jordan. some would go to turkey. some may come here, some to europe, the uk, maybe france and other places. and i think this will automatically -- maybe this is still -- it's not a hypothetical. it is happening. they would give back their arms and get on with their life. so one good sign about how peaceful and how successful elections can be in libya is the recent elections that took place in misrata, for example. very peacefully. it was very successful. and another sign of how peaceful the country is are the

celebrations, the spontaneous coming together of the people in celebrationing the first anniversary of the revolution. you can see it in benghazi and tripoli, the big cities. there was no problem whatsoever, and no penny was paid by the government. it was just spontaneous. people simply came out and celebrated. before i came here, i prepared a video clip, but i thought it's very unfortunate that it was not perfect. so i didn't bring it with me to share with you. but i'll send it to you after we refine it, because we do things in a good way still, you know. but we'll get there. that's the militia groups. yeah, in terms of decentralizing the government operations, we are all for it. we strongly believe that the past regime meant to centralize

operations for the and maybe -- he knew it is going to cause problems. it is totally unfair for someone to travel from one city, 1,000 kilometers for even 300 kilometers or 200 kilometers to just apply for a visa or maybe fry to get, just -- just an official document signed. it is ridiculous, you know? this remind me of the 18th, 19th centuries. it can't work anymore soecht we are doing a number of things. one thing is that we are, we have already -- prepared. and simply are refining it -- the law that divide libya into

districts governance. so that will totally decentralize the operation. the other thing for now, we will -- have representation of the government in benghazi and where people can communicate with government through those offices, directly, and get quick responses. we are also asking governments to have consulates in those two cities, and we are getting positive response. we have turkey, for example, italy, i think -- a few others. british i think will also do the same. and many of them, will do that. i hope the u.s. will also do that. we are also -- planning, and we have started -- having some of the major operations being in, for example, we, we have --

water resource -- department. it is a huge department. and it, it does -- take, it is in charge of this -- this river, the man made river which is a huge project. it is a big one. desalinization plants, and water resources. this will be located in benghazi. this is a big operation. and we will do more for bengh i benghazi. we are also working on this -- electronic government project. and this will definitely be -- quite helpful in decentralizing the operation. so we are going to do things in a way that will libyan individual and hopefully we will take care of this, it will fake a bit take a bit of t.

private sector -- before coming here i had the meeting with the, what, maybe, 30 to 40 libyans who are the private sector. and we, this is not the first time. i have -- a couple of my colleagues on the cabinet who met with places. we communicate and feel strongly in libya you have three pillars that should work together in supporting and creating the new libya. that is the government private sector and the civil society. civil society is flourishing doing a great job there. we meet with them. very, very well. >> i think we have room rquesti. so let's take three or four.

>> thank you. mr. prime minister, thank you for your remarks. my question for you is this -- would you, would you welcome the russian companies back to libya? and will you, will your government, when the contracts end, deals struck under the gadhafi regime. and what will be projects, including those with russian participation, which have been suspd? discuss -- do yoings with the russian government? thank you. >> yes, sir. >> jacques romani, university of maryland, libya scholar. mr. prime minister, your excellency. i have a two-part question, focused on minorities. secretary

pra praised building of democracy under your leadership. i know libya faces multiple challenges ahead. could you kindly tell us your government's thinking about including and that which lived in libya for over 200 years and forced to leave. in this regard, the second part of the question, can the jewish community of libya hope for symbolic recognition and restoration of its important, religious and cultural heritage uh as libyans, synagogues, cemeteries and houses of learning that were destroyed by the gadhafi regime. i know many young libyan tuesday are not even aware of the existence of this community on libyan soil. but they're curious to find out. especially find out from their parents and grandparents who tell them about their good

relations with their jewish neighbors for many, many centuries. and hopefully in the future. >> please, one last question. lady over here. >> hi. i'm with freedom house, libyaout reach. i am a libyan american. let me commend you and thank you for your team. we support you and in fact would look to see more of you. so the first question is with regards to transparency. what efforts are you take, not even what efforts, is it possible for you to convey on a more weekly or daily basis what it is you are doing. because at least for those of us here, based in d.c., it seems as though we are getting more of the indications from the national transitional council versus the government and with that regard can you explain what are the different responsibilities between the interim government and that of the national transitional council? i work with freedom house, where -- watch dog human rights organization and we do civil

society fro gramming. so i would look to hear from you what kind of training do you see is needed for organizations that are planning to come to libya, so we can help out in the development of civil so sigh sunny thank yosigh -- development of civil society? thank you. >> concerning russia -- we wished that russia would have -- felt what was going on. in libya during the past -- during the eight months of the revolution. you know? did they see what was happening? i don't know. i hope they -- didn't.

was it okay? if they -- if they saw what was happening but never cared? i would say maybe never cares is the proper word. but whether they had -- a political agenda that served their objectives in this world, i can say they have the right to. are we happy with how russia handled the situation? respectfully no. do we work -- -- welcome russia to come back and work on projects? yes, as long as they don't serve the past regime. and have no connections with it. do we honor contracts and i tell

you yes. but after reviewing them, they have to be legal and we have to make sure that corruption was not -- was not a major part of it. i hope i answered your questions. so, yeah. by all means. we want to be a positive force in this world in a small way. based on our size. buts i tell you, you know, this was a costly revolution. it was not easy. and i hope our russian friends realize that. so -- yeah. you are welcome to come back. keep in mind that -- we don't want the past regime anymore. and we are not going to take it anymore. and we don't want to even smell it anymore. but, yeah, you arewe