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As Washington offered refuge to embattled strongman Gbagbo, Raila Odinga — who met the rivals in Ivory Coast on Monday — announced the breakthrough on his return to Nigeria for talks with other African leaders.
“We have broken the ice. They (Gbagbo and Ouattara) have agreed to meet face to face but under certain conditions,” Odinga, Kenya’s prime minister, told AFP by telephone.
However Ouattara’s camp quickly ruled out any direct talks with Gbagbo, with aide Ali Coulibaly saying the assertion was “completely false.”
Odinga spoke shortly before African mediators met to debrief Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s president and current leader of regional bloc ECOWAS, on their mission to the Ivory Coast the day before.
“We had useful discussions with the parties in Ivory Coast. It was a useful beginning. More efforts have to be made to achieve peace in Ivory Coast,” Odinga said.
The Kenyan said a statement would be issued later Tuesday “on the outcome of our mission and the way forward.”
Four African leaders shuttled between Gbagbo and the internationally recognised new leader of the cocoa-rich country, Ouattara, in a new round of talks in the capital Abidjan on Monday.
They left Abidjan late Monday with the Sierra Leone leader Ernest Koroma giving a veiled admission that no firm deal had been secured from Gbagbo for him to stand down.-AFP
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