I Coast: No military solution
2004-11-25 11:38
Ouagadougou - United Nations chief Kofi Annan warned that there was "no military solution" to the crisis in troubled Ivory Coast and urged President Laurent Gbagbo to follow internationally agreed peace accords.
"The Ivorians must reconcile, use dialogue to work together and save their country ... there is no military solution to the crisis," he told journalists in the Burkina Faso capital late on Wednesday.
Ivory Coast has been wracked by a political-military insurrection that has divided the world's top coffee producer in two since September 2002, with the government of Gbagbo controlling the south and rebels the north.
An uneasy calm has returned to the country's commercial capital Abidjan and other cities following violent anti-French riots which led to more than 8 000 French and foreign national leaving.
Shaky truce
The riots came after French troops, deployed to police a shaky truce agreed in March last year between the government and rebels, retaliated by virtually destroying the Ivorian air force after nine of their soldiers were killed in a raid on the main rebel-held town.
The Ivorian raid breached the truce, and Annan urged Gbagbo to respect the January 2003 accord, reaffirmed at a summit in Accra in July.
"He must abide by the Marcoussis and Accra III accords. Everything is in those two documents," the UN secretary general said.
Annan spoke with Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore about the crisis in Ivory Coast during a dinner late on Wednesday. - FP
- SAPA