I Coast peace talks going well

2005-04-06 11:14

Pretoria - President Thabo Mbeki and Ivory Coast leaders were expected to put the finishing touches on proposals to restart the peace process in the troubled West African nation at a final day of talks on Wednesday.

"Discussions are expected to resume at nine in the morning," Bheki Khumalo, the South African leader's spokesperson, said, after marathon talks broke for the night on Tuesday.

"There will be a statement with simple, precise and concrete things," at the end of the talks on Wednesday, said Sidiki Konate, a spokesperson of the rebel New Forces which has been controlling the northern half of Ivory Coast since the rebellion against President Laurent Gbagbo erupted in September 2002.

Mbeki opened the talks on Sunday with President Gbagbo and four other key players in Ivory Coast, the first such high-level meeting since a French-brokered peace accord in 2003.

The South African president, the African Union's chief mediator for Ivory Coast, won support from the United Nations Security Council on Monday when it called on all parties to "pursue a lasting and just solution to the current crisis, particularly through the African Union mediation led by President Thabo Mbeki."

The UN Security Council on Monday extended the mission of 6 000 UN troops backed by 4 000 French forces for a month as participants at the Pretoria talks tried to make progress.

Other than Gbagbo, the participants at the talks were main opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, who lives in exile in France; former president Henri Konan Bedie; Seydou Diarra, consensus prime minister of a government of national reconciliation; and rebel leader Guillaume Soro.

It was the first time since a 2003 French-brokered peace accord that all the heavyweights sat at the same table for talks.

The French peace deal provided for a ceasefire line and a truce which has been breached several times by both government forces and the rebels. It also provided for disarmament which has not been implemented so far.

Mbeki in December presented a roadmap to peace for Ivory Coast that provided for disarmament, and constitutional and legislative changes that would pave the way to a presidential election in October.

A sticking point is the controversial Article 35 of the constitution, which was used to bar main opposition leader Ouattara from the last presidential election won by Gbagbo in 2000 on the grounds that both his parents were not Ivorian. - AFP

- SAPA