South African President Thabo Mbeki and his Ivorian counterpart Laurent Gbagbo were tight-lipped on Monday after a meeting to tackle the West African country’s stalled peace process.
Nigeria, meanwhile, highlighted widespread African fears over tensions in Côte d’Ivoire and called for United Nations Security Council action if an election is not held by the end of the year.
After two hours of closed-door talks in a hotel room in the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan, Gbagbo and Mbeki, who is also the African Union’s chief mediator in Côte d’Ivoire, emerged relaxed but said nothing to the media about their discussions.
Mbeki was expected to stay for around 24 hours on his first trip here since the United Nations — the main sponsor and overseer of the faltering peace process — admitted last month that a deadline for holding elections would be missed for the second time in as many years.
His visit also comes days after Gbagbo snubbed talks between the main parties in the peace process last week at the UN headquarters in New York on grounds that the peace process had ”failed”.
Once a model of prosperity and stability in West Africa, the former French colony has been divided into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south since a brief civil war that broke out in 2002 when rebels tried to topple Gbagbo.
Mbeki last December appointed former regional central bank governor Charles Konan Banny as transitional prime minister to oversee the disarmament of rebel and pro-government factions to be followed by elections.
But the UN-brokered peace process has ground to a halt, with the main parties now conceding that elections expected for October 31 would not take place.
Nigerian Foreign Minister Joy Ogwu told the UN General Assemby on Monday that ”the elections in Cote d’Ivoire must not be allowed to be frustrated beyond December 31”.
Gbagbo has branded the peace process a failure with his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) telling French peacekeepers to leave and demanding the dissolution of a panel of international diplomats trying to end the crisis.
Mbeki was not likely to receive a warm welcome from the Ivorian opposition, who have accused him of bias in the peace process.
On Sunday, New Force (FN) rebel leader Guillaume Soro wrote a letter to the AU head, Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, calling for Mbeki to be replaced as chief mediator because of his ”diverted and politically incorrect means”.
And Mbeki’s general room for manouevre appeared restricted, with the positions of the various sides having become increasingly entrenched in recent weeks.
His lightning trip was to be followed in coming weeks by several key meetings to try to tackle the growing complex crisis.
The 15-member regional grouping Ecowas is due to hold talks early next month, followed by the AU meeting in Addis Ababa before the UN Security Council takes a decision on October 17 on the fate of the country.
The UN, which has deployed about 7Â 000 peacekeepers who patrol the buffer zone between the north and the south along with about 4Â 000 French troops, has admitted that the country would miss the October 31 deadline for new elections.
It cites delays in preparing the vote amid continued squabbling by the opposing sides which Banny has been powerless to resolve. – Sapa-AFP