The United Nations should play the central role in rebuilding Libya following violence that has continued since rebels drove Muammer Gaddafi from his stronghold in Tripoli, Russia's Foreign Ministry says.

"We proceed from the position that work in the post-conflict development of Libya must be carried out exclusively under the aegis of the U.N. Security Council," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich speaking at a news conference.

Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni said it will take six to eighteen months to resume its oil production in Libya depending on the fields.

"It will take time. I would say 6-18 months," Scaroni said after a meeting between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan rebel government leader Mahmood Jibril.

Scaroni said Eni's focus was on getting its Libyan gas flows working again and reiterated he was not concerned about Eni's contracts in Libya.

He said there had been no talks about new contracts at the meeting.

More than 30 men believed to be fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have been killed at a military encampment in central Tripoli and at least two were bound with plastic handcuffs, indicating they had been executed.

A Reuters reporter at the scene in the Libyan capital said he counted 30 bodies riddled with bullets in an area where there had been fighting between Gaddafi forces and rebels.

Five of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped to a gurney with an intravenous drip still in his arm.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says the United Nations should take "urgent" action to unfreeze Libyan assets and said NATO must continue operations until the North African country was fully secured.

Davutoglu's comments were made during an opening speech at the start of a Libya Contact Group meeting of senior diplomats in Istanbul who are discussing the next steps for the country.

Fighting has broken out around a hotel in the centre of the Libyan capital, with rebels on the hotel roof firing at snipers loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in nearby buildings.

A Reuters reporter in Tripoli's Corinthia hotel said rebels in front of the building were using anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades to target the snipers. He said other rebels were firing at the snipers from the hotel roof.

The Corinthia hotel is about 1.5 km (a mile) from Tripoli's central Green Square and opposite the city's ancient medina, or old city.

Seen from Iran, Libya is either the latest dictatorship to fall to an "Islamic awakening" that will unite the Muslim Middle East, or a new foothold for the treacherous West to assert its economic and political domination over the region.

Iran hopes Gaddafi domino will fall the right way

Libyan rebel chief warns of disorder without help

By Silvia Aloisi

MILAN, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The head of Libya's rebel government warned on Thursday of dangerous destabilisation in the country unless financial aid from the West arrives quickly to help restore services to the population.

Mahmoud Jibril spoke after meeting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who said Rome had begun unfreezing 350 million euros ($504.3 million) of Libyan funds in Italian banks to help the rebel movement govern Libya.

Berlusconi said the unfreezing marked a first step in a broader effort to unblock all of the North African country's assets in Italy, the former colonial power.

Italy, once Libya's closest ally in the West, froze around $8 billion of Libyan assets as part of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi, whose 42 years in power appeared at an end this week.

"The biggest destabilising element would be the failure of the (rebel) National Transitional Council to deliver the necessary services and pay the salaries of the people who have not been paid for months," Jibril told a news conference in Milan. "Our priorities cannot be carried out by the government without having the necessary money immediately."