South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday he hopes to wrap up by the end of the week the first round of peace talks with government, opposition and rebel leaders in Côte d’Ivoire, aiming to pinpoint obstacles to implementing a peace plan.
Speaking to reporters on a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Mbeki said he still has to meet rebel leader Guillaume Soro to conclude what problems remain to implement a peace plan that foresees elections in November 2005.
”At the end of this week, we will be meeting Soro … so that would more or less complete the first round of consultations,” Mbeki said.
”What we are trying to establish is what are the obstacles that stand in the way of the implementation of the agreements that all the forces have reached … It’s not possible to say what the obstacles are at this stage.”
Mbeki, who was picked as the African Union’s envoy to try to resolve the escalation of violence in Côte d’Ivoire, remains optimistic the current conflict can be resolved.
A new round of bloodletting there has raised fears for the future of what was once one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous countries.
Côte d’Ivoire’s government reopened the nation’s civil war on November 4 with air strikes on the rebel-held north. Two days later, Ivorian warplanes bombed a French peacekeeping post, killing nine French troops and an American aid worker and plunging the country into chaos.
”Nobody wants to resume or escalate the war in Côte d’Ivoire, everyone wants peace, wants resolution of this matter,” Mbeki said.
He said the presence of French peacekeepers there is also not in question at this point, and said they should remain.
”We agreed the forces were needed to separate the belligerents,” Mbeki said. ”The United Nations took its own decisions about that, which we support.
”It’s clear that there have been problems in terms of the implementation of the agreements that have been reached, but the fact that there have been problems doesn’t mean that those problems are permanent. The Ivorian people and Ivorian leadership will and must find one another,” said Mbeki.
The Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan’s Darfur crisis and closer African ties were top of Mbeki’s agenda during his three-day visit with European Union leaders and officials in Brussels and Strasbourg.
In his address to the European Parliament, Mbeki said Europe should foster better ties with Africa based on a new equal partnership, recognising that while Africans are able to handle their own problems, they do at times need help in reaching their goals. — Sapa-AP