Ivorian rebels snub Gbagbo bid to bypass peace plan
Source: Reuters
By Salim Bamba BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's northern-based New Forces rebels on Monday rejected a bid by President Laurent Gbagbo to bypass a U.N.-backed peace plan and hold direct talks with them. Gbagbo announced his own plans on Dec. 19 to end the partition of the cocoa-growing country after a 20002/03 civil war, including direct talks with the rebels, in what was widely interpreted as a further snub to the U.N.-backed process. But in a New Year's statement on Monday, New Forces leader Guillaume Soro made clear any talks would have to follow the process laid out by U.N. Security Council resolution 1721, adopted in November, which hands broad control of reunification and organising delayed elections to an interim prime minister. Soro noted Gbagbo had asked President Blaise Compaore of neighbouring Burkina Faso to help mediate direct talks with the rebels, but said that contrary to some media reports, no such talks had taken place. "Nobody has the right to refuse dialogue and cooperation in the pursuit of peace. All the same, this dialogue can not be envisaged outside resolution 1721. So it seems to me to be urgent that all participate to fully enact this resolution," Soro said in a statement distributed by the rebels in Bouake. Resolution 1721 approved a further 12-month delay to a presidential election originally due in October 2005 but postponed because the country was split into the rebel-held north and government-controlled south, as it still is. The resolution also extended the term of interim consensus Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, a central banker, and strengthened his powers to arrange disarmament of former fighters, a national identification campaign and other steps towards reunification and elections now due by Oct. 31, 2007. The U.N. Security Council voiced "grave concern" on Dec. 21 at delays in the peace process and said Banny must be able to freely exercise his powers without hindrance, in an apparent swipe at Gbagbo and the home-grown peace plan he had launched two days earlier. U.N. peacekeepers backed by forces from former colonial power France patrol a buffer zone between the two sides, but international mediation efforts have foundered amid bickering between Gbagbo's government, the rebels and political parties.
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