ABIDJAN - West African leaders decided to end the peace-brokering role of South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, who is deemed to be aligned to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, sources said. Forces rebel leader Guillaume Soro, in an interview with the daily Nord-Sud. in Ivory Coast," Soro said, on the basis of recommendations made at last "The Ecowas heads of state decided to set aside Thabo Mbeki, judged too close to the Ivory Coast case.
They have therefore asked the African Union president for new, more neutral mediation," a European diplomatic source confirmed. "They believe that as long as Mbeki is the mediator, Gbagbo's opponents will refuse any concessions," said the diplomat. crisis amid little progress in the peace process, more than a year after Mbeki has attempted several times to jump-start the stalled peace process, The president of the AU Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, at the weekend defended Mbeki's role in Ivory Coast, saying his contribution "would be because we had nothing to do," said Pahad.
Ecowas, (Nigerian) President Olusegun Obasanjo, to get involved at a time when the crisis was really serious," he said. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade last month indirectly called on Mbeki to keep out of Ivory Coast politics, saying it was essentially a west African problem and calling for an end to what he regarded as illegitimate mediation. Both the opposition and rebels have expressed their disquiet with Mbeki's mediation.
News RSS