No question of recognising Gbagbo, ECOWAS says
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:07 GMT
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Recognising Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo as president is out of the question for African leaders trying to resolve the country's post-election crisis, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS said on Sunday.
Its statement was the strongest sign yet that Gbagbo had failed to convert African unease over possible military intervention, as threatened by ECOWAS, into a reversal of U.N.-certified results showing rival Alassane Ouattara won the presidential election on Nov. 28.
"The decision that they took was to try once more a peaceful effort to remove Gbagbo, not to legitimise Gbagbo. That is out of the question," James Victor Gbeho, president of the ECOWAS Commission, told journalists.
He was speaking on the sidelines of an African Union (AU) summit in the Ethiopian capital.
On Friday, the AU's Peace and Security Council appointed five African leaders to end the crisis and gave them a one-month mandate.
Ouattara has been recognised as president-elect by most world leaders but he is confined to a U.N.-protected hotel while Gbagbo retains control of the armed forces and most institutions.
In the run-up to the AU summit, divisions had emerged among African leaders over the stalemate, with Gbagbo hoping to secure support for a vote recount.
Some African leaders oppose to a threat by ECOWAS to remove Gbagbo by force if he refuses to hand over power. He was named winner by a legal body which cancelled hundreds of thousands of Ouattara votes, alleging fraud.
Gbeho said there were no differences between ECOWAS and the AU's peace and security body and an attempt to authorise the AU to re-assess the results had been rejected.
So far more than 260 people have killed since the crisis began and tens of thousands have fled to neighbouring Liberia. Cocoa prices have soared and Ivory Coast is set to miss the extended deadline for paying a coupon on its $2.3 billion Eurobond due 2032 <XS0496488395=R>. (Editing by Andrew Dobbie) (Reporting by Richard Lough; writing by David Lewis)
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