South African president aiming to broker peace talks in Libya

South African media reported the aim of the talks is to find a formula to end the three-and-a-half-month Libyan civil war.

This would mark the first time the Libyan leader has sought to cut a deal with the rebels who now control about half the country.

Officially, Mr Zuma insists he is simply visiting the Libyan leader as part of his job as a senior envoy for the African Union.

In a statement, Mr Zuma's office said that the president will visit Tripoli for a discussion with Col Gaddafi "in his capacity as a member of the African Union High Level Panel for the Resolution of the conflict in Libya".

However, government sources last night said that the true meaning of the trip was to "discuss an exit strategy for Gaddafi".

It will be the second time the South African president has visited Tripoli. Last month he headed an African Union mission to the capital - only to see the peace deal they suggested collapse within hours.

However, diplomats last night said Mr Zuma will this time be expecting to bring back something more substantial.

Last week Libya's rebel National Transitional Council rejected a ceasefire offer from the Gaddafi regime, saying it must first be coupled with human rights protections in areas under government control.

The latest visit was reportedly arranged with the co-operation of Turkey, an opponent of Nato's military intervention and a country which had close ties with the Libyan government, but the Turkish foreign ministry insisted they have had no contact about the visit.

Thus far, Col Gaddafi has put out few peace feelers despite the pounding his capital has received from Nato bombers and reverses on the battlefield.

For most of the war, the Gaddafi regime appeared to expect that its forces could re-take lost territory, including Libya's second largest city, Misrata, which his forces have besieged, and the rebel capital Benghazi.

However, Misrata's rebels, fortified by the arrival of western-made Milan anti-tank weapons, have pushed out their city perimeter. Meanwhile in the east, newly-formed rebel brigades are massed close to the oil town of Brega which they expect to take.

With Nato air strikes closely co-ordinated with ground troops, through the use of British and French special forces, few military analysts believe this is a war Col Gaddafi can win.

Instead, he seems likely to lose.

Analysts state that the longer the war goes on, the more degraded his forces will become and international sanctions will starve his regime of cash and supplies.

"The purpose (of Mr Zuma's visit to Tripoli] is to discuss an exit strategy for Gaddafi," a South African foreign ministry source was quoted as saying yesterday. "The meeting is still very much in the planning stages."

If the Libyan leader wants to stop the war, the rebels are expected to renew their demand that he ends not just the fighting along the frontlines, but also the repression inside government-held territory - a condition rebel sources say Col Gaddafi would find it impossible to fulfil.

An exit from Libya has been suggested by London, Rome and Washington, but faces the complication that any country taking him into exile would potentially have to defy the International Criminal Court, which is expected to confirm charges of crimes against humanity laid by the prosecutor last week.

Earlier this year Mr Zuma tried and failed to persuade Ivory Coast's former leader Laurent Gbagbo to step down after losing the presidential election to rival Alassane Ouattara.

Mr Gbagbo refused to quit and he was finally removed by Mr Ouattara's forces, backed by UN troops, after months of violence in the country.