PARIS: World leaders said Monday the end is near for Moammar Gadhafi's regime and began planning for Libya's future without the man who has held power there for 42 years.
Across Europe, premiers welcomed the rebels' dramatic advances in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, after six months of fighting, and urged Gadhafi to surrender and avoid a bloodbath.
Hundreds of Libyans living abroad celebrated in the streets, taking over embassies, burning images of the Libyan strongman and hoisting rebel flags.
Egypt and Jordan recognized the rebel National Transitional Council as the sole representative of Libya's people.Though Gadhafi's whereabouts were not known, leaders were setting the stage for new leadership there.
Britain said its frozen Libyan assets would soon be released to help the country's rebels establish order; France announced plans for an international meeting next week; and Italy sent a team to the rebels' base of Benghazi, Libya, to help plan reconstruction and the restoration of oil and natural gas production.
''The time is up. There is no alternative to surrendering and handing himself in to justice,'' Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said of Gadhafi on Monday.
''His regime is falling apart and in full retreat. Gadhafi must stop fighting, without conditions,'' British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London. He vowed that Britain and others would now assist Libya's ''effective transition to a free, democratic and inclusive'' nation.
Cameron said British diplomats would move from Benghazi in the east to Tripoli as soon as it was safe to do so. Crucially, he announced that Britain, which has frozen about 12 billion pounds ($20 billion) of Libyan assets, will soon release the funds.
Germany announced similar plans once the Gadhafi regime is gone. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that about (euro) 7 billion ($10.1 billion) is frozen in Germany and that the money could be used to help rebuild Libya. ''The Libyan people are entitled to this money,'' he said.
France said the ''contact group'' of international powers involved in stabilizing Libya would meet next week in Paris. French President Nicolas Sarkozy invited Libya's opposition leader to come to Paris for the talks, his office said.
France and Britain, backed by the United States, have spearheaded the Nato-led air campaign that began under a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the protection of civilians.
British Defense Secretary Liam Fox told BBC radio that resistance to Libyan rebels was coming mainly from foreign mercenaries, rather than Libyans still loyal to Gadhafi.
''Pockets of resistance remain and there is a certain amount of violence still occurring. We also know that a lot of the resistance from the pro-Gadhafi forces has in fact come from mercenary elements,'' Fox said.
Fox confirmed that Nato's mission in Libya would continue for the time being.
''NATO will continue with its overwatch, and while we have stopped bombing operations at the present time, we would be able to respond to any threat to the civilian population or to Nato forces themselves,'' he said.
Portugal's Foreign Ministry urged the rebel National Transitional Council to embark on ''a process of national reconciliation, with a peaceful transition to democracy.''
In Brussels, the European Union vowed in a statement to ''keep supporting the country in its democratic transition and economic reconstruction, based on social justice, inclusiveness and territorial integrity.''
The EU has given (euro) 150 million ($215 million) in humanitarian aid to Libya during the civil war, and in May, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton extended de-facto recognition to the rebels' council by opening a diplomatic office in Benghazi.
Egypt, which shares its western border with Libya and is just months out of its own pro-democracy revolt, formally recognized the National Transitional Council as the sole representative of the Libyan people.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr announced that at a joint news conference in Cairo with the council's representative to the Arab League, Abdel-Moneim al-Huni.
Hundreds of people celebrated the advance of rebel troops into Tripoli early Monday by staging a rally in front of the Libyan embassy in Cairo.
In the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, residents pulled down the green Libyan flag from a consulate building and replaced it with the rebel tricolor flag.
Jordan, a strong Arab ally of the U.S. and one of the first countries to recognize the rebels' council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, said any transition should lay the foundations for a ''new democratic regime.''
Jordan's top diplomat Nasser Judeh said his country ''hopes for a swift and peaceful transition of power,'' according to the official Petra news agency.