AU to restore peace in I Coast
2005-09-20 13:35
Abuja - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says the African Union and the West African regional economic bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), will pursue its work with the United Nations to ensure peace in strife-torn Ivory Coast.
Speaking to the special representative of the UN secretary general in Ivory Coast, Pierre Schori, Obasanjo said, he would hold extensive consultations with all the parties in the conflict as well as regional leaders and the AU.
The Nigerian leader expressed appreciation to Schori for the briefing he got from him on the situation in the war-wracked West African country.
AU 'appreciates Mbeki's efforts'
On Saturday Obasanjo told the UN general assembly in New York that ECOWAS and the AU needed to review their role in the Ivory Coast crisis, hinting that South Africa's mediation might end.
The AU chairman, Obasanjo, said: "We appreciate the efforts deployed by President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in Ivory Coast on behalf of the AU.
"In view of President Mbeki's report of August 30 2005, it would be necessary for ECOWAS and the AU to revisit the situation" in the Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and once a haven of stability in west Africa, had been split in two since a failed coup against President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002, pitting rebels from the mainly Muslim north against the Christian-populated south.
- AFP