Ivory Coast rebels hold talks with JAK

Ivory Coast's rebels sent a three-man delegation to meet Ghanaian President John Kufuor on Friday as West African officials scrambled to save a flagging peace process aimed at ending a four-month civil war.

Mohamed ibn Chambas, the top official at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), told Reuters the rebels arrived in Ghana's capital Accra on Friday.

Kufuor currently holds the presidency of ECOWAS, a regional bloc which spearheaded early efforts to forge a ceasefire and end the war in Ivory Coast.

A spokesman for the main rebel faction, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), said the rebel delegation had been invited to Ghana by Kufuor and would return home later Friday.

Ivory Coast's war began with a failed coup in September. The rebels hold the north and large parts of the west. Officials say 5,000 people have been killed and more than a million displaced.

MPCI spokesman Antoine Beugre said the rebel delegation included two MPCI rebels and one from the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP). A third rebel group -- the Ivorian Popular Movement for the Far West (MPIGO) -- was not represented.

The visit comes as Ivory Coast waits anxiously for a key speech from President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday evening. In his address, the president is expected to reject elements of a French-brokered peace deal, agreed in Paris last month.

The peace deal has enraged Gbagbo's supporters because it offers key posts in the defence and interior ministries to the rebels. News of the accord triggered violent anti-French riots in the main city Abidjan last week.

Kufuor met Gbagbo in Accra earlier this week. Regional leaders are expected to hold a summit in Ivory Coast, possibly this weekend, to discuss the peace process. Gbagbo's office was not immediately able to give details.

MPCI secretary general Guillaume Soro, on a visit to the west of Ivory Coast to meet the two other rebel groups said on Friday that Gbagbo must stand by the terms of the Paris deal.

"He must accept the application of the accord. This is what the international community expects and we can't expect anything else," he told rebels in the western town of Danane.