SA mediators to brief UN
2005-08-30 09:15
United Nations - The United Nations Security Council was due to hold closed consultations on Wednesday to hear a briefing from South African mediators on the rising tensions in strife-torn Ivory Coast.
South African Defence Minister Mosuioa Lekota will give the briefing early on Wednesday at the request of the current council president, Japan's UN envoy Kenzo Oshima, said Zaheer Laher, a spokesperson for South Africa' UN mission.
He told AFP the rival Ivorian parties and Nigeria, as chairman of the Africa Union, would be invited to attend.
The council meeting comes against a backdrop of heightened tensions in the world's number one cocoa producer, fuelled by last week's decision by rebels to withdraw their support for presidential elections planned for October 30 as part of a South African-mediated peace plan.
"The briefing will entail current developments as well as the status of the mediation," Laher said. "It will be an explanation of where the parties are" with respect to their respective commitments under the Pretoria agreement reached under the mediation of South African President Thabo Mbeki, Laher noted.
"It will take a look at what needs to be done and will look at preparations for the elections," he added, stressing that the focus would be on currently contentious issues and on recent discussions Mbeki had with Ivorian rebels in Pretoria.
The opposition has complained that the decrees issued by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and deemed acceptable by Mbeki gave an unfair advantage to the government ahead of the presidential poll.
Also at issue are commitments under the peace agreement signed in June, known as Pretoria II, that are to lead to the disarmament of both the rebels and militia groups backing the Gbagbo government.
Laher played down growing fears that the Ivorian peace process may be unravelling after rebels withdrew their backing for the polls and insisted that Gbagbo should step down on October 30 and have no role in a political transition.
"As far as we are concerned ... everyone is going ahead with preparations for the elections," he noted
Ivory Coast's New Forces rebels said last week that democratic conditions were not sufficient to go ahead with "free, democratic and transparent" elections on October 30 and called for a "political transition" that would exclude Gbagbo.
Gbagbo meanwhile said on Friday that international mediators must decide if presidential elections can go ahead as planned.
Gbagbo's comments, reported on national television, were his first public statement since former army leader General Mathias Doue - who was sacked in November 2004 - vowed on August 19 to remove the president.
Under a timetable approved by rebels holding the north of the country since a failed attempt to topple Gbagbo in 2002, both sides were to have disarmed by August 20.