I Coast: SA won't pull out
2005-08-31 10:50
Pretoria - South Africa's foreign ministry on Wednesday retracted a statement it would halt its mediation efforts in strife-torn Ivory Coast.
South African deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad on Tuesday told reporters "the time has come... that the mediation's role by and large has now concluded", adding United Nations and African Union should take over peace efforts in the west African nation.
"We have come to the conclusion the mediation is finished," Pahad said.
But early on Wednesday foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said: "What he (Pahad) meant to say is that we have concluded the report of the current phase of mediation."
Mamoepa said South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota would brief the UN Security Council on the issue on Wednesday.
"Lekota will brief the UN Security Council and report to (Nigerian) President Olusegun Obasanjo in his capacity as the current head of the AU. We will continue with mediation efforts as mandated by the AU and the UN," Mamoepa said.
Tensions are on the rise in the west African nation where rebels last week withdrew from the elections, demanding instead that Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo step down and play no part in a political transition negotiated by South African President Thabo Mbeki.
The country's opposition parties joined this call on Monday saying it was impossible to organise a presidential election as planned for October 30 and demanding a "political transition" be set up, excluding Gbagbo.
Pahad in the Tuesday press briefing repeatedly said South Africa believed its mediation job had been concluded, adding the mediation was in "no mood" to consider new demands from rebels.
The AU asked South Africa last November to spearhead international efforts to ensure progress towards reunification after a 2003 peace deal stalled, with sanctions threatened against the country if an agreed timetable is not kept.
Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and once a haven of stability in west Africa, has been split in two since a failed coup against Gbagbo in September 2002, pitting rebels from the Muslim-dominated north against the Christian-populated south.