IVORY COAST: REBELS ATTEND FIRST MINISTERIAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT GBAGDO SINCE RECENT BOYCOTT

Record ID: 183624

  • Title: IVORY COAST: REBELS ATTEND FIRST MINISTERIAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT GBAGDO SINCE RECENT BOYCOTT
  • Date: 6th January 2004
  • Summary: (U6) ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (JANUARY 6, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. PRIME MINISTER LAURENT GBAGBO WALKING WITH ARTS MINISTER DOSSO MOUSSA (ON THE RIGHT OF GBAGBO) AND LAND MINISTER ISSA DIAKITE (ON LEFT) 0.06 2. SLV PHOTOGRAPHERS 0.08 3. SLV ARRIVAL OF REBEL YOUTH MINISTER TUO FOCIE 0.13 4. WIDE OF MEDIA OUTSIDE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE 0.16 5. SMV PRESIDENT GBAGBO SHAKING HANDS WITH REBEL SPORT MINISTER MICHELE GUEU 0.24 6. VARIOUS OF MINISTERS SEATED ROUND TABLE (2 SHOTS) 0.32 7. SLV EXTERIOR OF PALACE WITH MINISTERS DEPARTING 0.36 8. SCU SOUNDBITE (French) ART MINISTER MOUSSA SAYING: "We have put forward serious reservations with regard to the decision for the referendum." 0.42 9. SLV MOUSSA WALKING 0.46 10. SLV PRIME MINISTER GBAGBO TALKING WITH FOREIGN MINISTER 0.53 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 21st January 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST
  • Country: Ivory Coast
  • Reuters ID: LVAB138IPKZV4YP22F1917I49UDJ
  • Story Text: Ivory Coast's rebels attended their first
    ministerial meeting with President Laurent Gbagbo since
    ending a three-month boycott of a coalition government set
    up under a peace deal to end civil war.




    The return of rebel ministers is expected to lift
    hopes that a troubled peace process can move ahead in the
    world's top cocoa growing country.

    "We want to make a fresh start. We're back with a very
    positive attitude," Issa Diakite, a minister from the rebel
    New Forces who is in charge of land administration, told
    reporters outside the presidency on Tuesday (January 6).

    Six out of nine rebel ministers, dressed in dark suits
    and bearing shiny briefcases, arrived at the meeting in the
    commercial capital Abidjan although the political leader of
    the rebellion, Guillaume Soro, was absent.

    Sidiki Konate, a spokesman for the New Forces, said
    Soro had been held up by a death in the family but would
    attend government meetings scheduled for Wednesday and
    Thursday.

    At the start of the meeting, Gbagbo walked around the
    table, shaking all ministers by the hand in the crowded
    room.

    Ivory Coast's civil war broke out after rebels tried to
    topple Gbagbo in September 2002. Thousands of people were
    killed and a million fled their homes in the months of
    fighting that followed and the West African country is
    still split in two.

    Although the war was formally declared over in July,
    Ivory Coast, once the region's most vibrant economy, is
    still divided with rebels holding the north and pro-Gbagbo
    troops the south.

    Some 4,000 French soldiers are in their former colony
    to keep the peace and are strung out along a no-weapons
    buffer zone across the middle of the country.

    A handful of French soldiers have recently deployed to
    the far north of the country, deep into rebel territory, as
    part of a process of disarming the combatants and reuniting
    the country.


  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register