Kufuor attend ECOWAS summit on Ivory Coast

ABUJA - Five west African heads of state and their Gabonese counterpart are to gather here on Sunday for a mini-summit of the west African bloc ECOWAS on the stalled peace process in Ivory Coast, officials said.

The presidents of Ivory Coast, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo as well as Gabon will take part in the meeting at Abuja international airport, officials from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said on Saturday.

The mini-summit started in Lome on Saturday with two-way talks between Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and veteran Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who are believed to be close allies.

The Abuja meeting is part of efforts to extricate Ivory Coast, the world?s top cocoa producer, from 20 months of crisis spawned by a failed coup against Gbagbo in September 2002, which plunged the nation into civil war.

Gabonese President Omar Bongo, although from central Africa, is believed to have a ?a special role? to play in the resolution of the Ivorian crisis, due to his close ties to certain Ivorian politicians, a diplomat said.

Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who is in his second term as ECOWAS chief, and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo have both played key roles in efforts to reconcile Ivory Coast in the run-up to elections planned for October 2005.

The 15-member ECOWAS has warned that renewed violence in Ivory Coast could be a threat to security across the region.

A French-brokered peace deal was signed in January last year between Gbagbo?s government and a rebel army which had wrested control of the northern portion of the west African country.

Under the peace pact, former rebel leaders were drawn into a government of national unity, allowing for the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers.

But the agreement now lies in tatters, with little hope in Ivory Coast of reviving it amid mounting ethnic tensions and spurts of violence highlighted by a brutal state-sanctioned crackdown on an opposition rally in March.

A United Nations report said at least 120 people were killed in several days of clashes that had been ?carefully planned and executed? by security forces under orders from ?the highest state authorities?.

The unity government created under the peace agreement has also been undermined by Gbagbo?s decision in May to sack three opposition ministers, including the rebel leader Guillaume Soro, and replace them with members of his ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).

Gbagbo?s supporters insist the rebels must disarm before the peace pact, designed to address key catalysts of the uprising including national identity and land ownership, can be fully implemented.