The main players in Côte d’Ivoire politics — seeking to end the crisis in the West African nation, meet on Monday for the first time on Ivorian soil since the country was torn apart by civil war.
The former French colony has been split down the middle since the conflict erupted in September 2002, with troops loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo controlling the south while the north is in rebel hands.
A peace deal signed in January 2003 in France has yet to be implemented and several subsequent accords have not advanced the peace process in the world’s top cocoa producer.
There has been a breakdown in political dialogue since Gbagbo’s mandate ran out in October 2005 and was extended for a year by United Nations Security Council resolution 1 633, a government official told Agence France-Presse.
Resolution 1 633 fixed the terms of the transition, envisaging the appointment of a prime minister with wider powers and a peace process leading the country to general elections by October this year.
Monday’s summit in the administrative capital Yamassoukro, in the centre of the country, was called by Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny.
Together with Gbagbo, rebel leader Guillaume Soro, Banny and opposition leaders Alassane Ouattara and former president Henri Konan Bedie ”will try to reopen political dialogue and seize back the initiative in settling the crisis”, officials said at the weekend.
Gbagbo and Soro, leader of the rebel New Forces, will also have their first head-to-head meeting since Soro left the government in October 2004, officials said.
But a rebel spokesperson was unable to confirm the presence of Soro, currently in the Congolese capital Brazzaville.
The meeting in Yamassoukro is due to end on Tuesday with the adoption of a common declaration.
Ouattara, leader of the Rally of Republicans (RDR), who returned to Côte d’Ivoire at the end of January after three years in exile in France, and Konan Bedie, who was president from 1993 to 1999 and is now leader of the Democratic Party (PCDI), will both be present, members of their entourages confirmed. – Sapa-AFP