Mbeki meets I Coast's Gbagbo
2005-01-23 08:03
Pretoria - President Thabo Mbeki is holding talks with opponents of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo in a renewed effort to defuse the crisis in the West African nation.
Mbeki planned to meet separately on Sunday with Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister who was barred from running against Gbagbo in presidential elections five years ago, and Guillaume Soro, chief of the New Forces rebels holding the northern part of Ivory Coast, presidential spokesperson David Hlabane said on Saturday.
Hlabane gave no details about the agenda, according to the South African Press Association.
Mbeki, who is the African Union mediator in the conflict, has met repeatedly with government representatives and rebels to try to push through a peace plan.
The West African nation has been split into a rebel-held north and loyalist south since a September 2002 coup attempt propelled the world's largest cocoa grower into civil war. Both sides signed peace accords but failed to carry them out.
Mbeki's plan calls for disarmament, security reforms and restarting a power-sharing government that rebels have boycotted. It also calls for convening an emergency session of the country's National Assembly to discuss a controversial constitutional requirement that any presidential candidate be a second-generation Ivorian. The government has used the requirement to bar a presidential run by Ouattara, claiming his parents were not born in Ivory Coast.
Pressing for peace in Africa
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution on November 15 imposing an arms embargo on Ivory Coast. It gave the government and rebels until December 15 to get the peace process back on track or face a travel ban and asset freeze against those blocking peace, violating human rights or preventing the disarmament of combatants.
South Africa is increasingly trying to use its economic and diplomatic muscle to press for greater peace and stability in Africa. Following the talks on Ivory Coast, Mbeki is due to travel to Congo for meetings with President Joseph Kabila about the peace process and elections scheduled for June.
Separately, the South African Police Service said it was readying an advance contingent of peacekeepers for service in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.
The South African Cabinet on Friday announced it had approved a request by the African Union for South Africa to contribute a contingent of 100 police officers as part of the civilian police component of the AU Peace Mission.
- AP