President Gbagbo confers with Kufuor

Accra, Feb. 4, GNA - President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d' Ivoire on Sunday paid a day's visit to Accra to confer with President John Agyekum Kufuor.

This was his first consultation since President Kufuor became Chairman of the African Union (AU).

The discussions of the two leaders were believed to have centred on ways to move the Ivorian peace process forward.

Cote d' Iviore, a neighbouring West African state and the world's leading producer of cocoa, has been plunged into political crisis since a group of about 800 soldiers protesting their demobilisation from the military launched an insurgency in 2002, seizing the northern parts of the country.

That country is now effectively divided into two, with the Government of President Gbagbo controlling the South and the rebels calling themselves the New Forces holding on firmly to the North. Attempts at conducting national elections to restore the country on the path of peace had twice been postponed over the sticky issue of disarming the rebels.

The parties have now agreed to have the national polls in October, this year.

President Gbagbo, speaking to the press at the Kotoka International Airport before he emplaned home, described his visit as not the first and said it would also not be the last. He said with President Kufuor's election as AU Chairman, all countries on the continent, who were having problems would be calling on him to discuss solutions to them.

President Kufuor, on his part said they used the meeting to review the relations between their two countries, which, he said, were good. This is the beginning of a new diplomacy, the AU Chairman, added. President Gbagbo has since returned home.