Staff Correspondent : defense minister said it was time for Libya’s rebels to negotiate with Muammar Gaddafi’s government, signaling growing impatience with progress in the conflict. Gaddafi’s son, in an interview with an Algerian newspaper on Monday, said his father’s government was in talks with the French government.

There was no immediate comment from Paris. French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said on Sunday the rebels should not wait for Gaddafi’s defeat, while signaling that Paris’ objective was that the Libyan leader must leave power eventually.

Washington said it stood firm in its belief Gaddafi must go. The messages from two leading members of the Western coalition opposing Gaddafi hinted at the strain the alliance is under after more than three months of air strikes that have cost billions of dollars and failed to produce the swift outcome its backers had expected.

rebels have refused to hold talks as long as Gaddafi remains in power, a stance which before now none of NATO’s major powers has publicly challenged. “We have … asked them to speak to each other,” Longuet, whose government has until now been among the most hawkish on Libya, said on French television station BFM TV. “The position of the TNC (rebel Transitional National Council) is very far from other positions. Now, there will be a need to sit around a table,” he said. Asked if it was possible to hold talks if Gaddafi had not stepped down, Longuet said: “He will be in another room in his palace with another title.

” Soon after, the State Department in Washington issued a message that gave no hint of compromise. “The Libyan people will be the ones to decide how this transition takes place, but we stand firm in our belief that Gaddafi cannot remain in power,” it said in a written reply to a query. It also said the United States would continue efforts, as part of the NATO coalition, to protect civilians from attack and said it believed the alliance was helping to up the pressure on Gaddafi. In an interview published on Monday by the Algerian El Khabar newspaper, Saif al-Islam, a son of the Libyan leader, said his father’s administration was in talks with the French government. Speaking from Tripoli, the newspaper quoted him as saying: “The truth is that we are negotiating with France and not with the rebels. “Our envoy to (Nicolas) Sarkozy said that the French president was very clear and told him ‘We created the (rebel)council, and without our support, and money, and our weapons, the council would have never existed. “France said: ‘When we reach an agreement with you (Tripoli), we will force the council to cease fire’,” he was quoted as saying. Gaddafi has been holding on to power in the face of rebel attacks trying to break his 41-year rule

NATO air strikes, economic sanctions and the defections of prominent members of his government. With no imminent end to the conflict in sight, cracks are emerging inside the NATO alliance. Some member states are balking at the burden on their recession-hit finances, and many are frustrated that there has been no decisive breakthrough.

But even countries which support a political solution have not answered the question of how a deal can be hammered out when the rebels and their Western backers say Gaddafi must go while the Libyan leader himself says that is not up for negotiation.