South African President Thabo Mbeki will travel to strife-torn Ivory Coast within the next two days on an African Union (AU) mandate to try to restore calm in the west African country, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
On his second visit to the divided nation, where foreign peacekeepers monitor lines between the rebel-held north and the government-held south, Mbeki is expected to hold talks with political players in Abidjan and to travel to the central rebel stronghold of Bouake.
Mbeki and his delegation are due to leave ”around Thursday but it all depends on further developments”, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad told reporters in Pretoria.
Mbeki first visited the former French colony on November 9 after a renewed outbreak of violence in Ivory Coast that has been divided since a September 2002 uprising.
It lurched back into crisis after the government launched air strikes on key towns in the north on November 4, in violation of an 18-month-old ceasefire monitored by French and other military peacekeepers.
The air strikes killed nine French peacekeepers, causing the French to retaliate by destroying the small Ivorian air force.
The French retaliation unleashed a torrent of anti-foreigner violence and vandalism and prompted the exodus of more than half of the 14 000-strong French expatriate population from the country.
Mbeki was mandated by the AU to try and resolve the crisis and has since met with Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, opposition leader in exile Alassane Ouattara, rebel leader Guillaume Soro and Prime Minister Seydou Diarra to try to put peace accords back on track.
”We want a speedy resolution to the crisis in CÃâ€te d’Ivoire because we believe it is in the interest of CÃâ€te d’Ivoire to go to the elections, as was agreed, next year,” Pahad said, using the country’s French name.
He said Gbagbo’s wife, Simone, one of the leaders in the ruling Ivorian Popular Front, met Mbeki at the weekend in South Africa.
”Simone Gbagbo and a delegation from parliament were here on Saturday and Sunday. It was a party to party meeting, not government to government,” Pahad said, adding that she met Mbeki as ”the president of the (ruling) African National Congress not as the president of the country”.
Pahad also said Mbeki had been in constant contact with French President Jacques Chirac.
”We have been very much in contact… at the presidents’ level as well as the two foreign ministers… We’ve been in constant touch, exchanging ideas and seeing how we can cooperate to make sure that we lower the tensions,” he said. – Sapa-AFP