Ivory Coast rebels strike deal in Accra

Accra - Ivory Coast rebels and political leaders have struck a deal at talks here to form a national unity government to end the ruinous five-month war in their country, airport officials said.

A key plank in the accord was the setting up of a so-called security council to monitor the defence and interior ministries.

The rebels relinquished their claims to the two sensitive portfolios at the Ghana talks after insisting for weeks that they had been promised the ministries under a French-mediated deal.

The conflict in Ivory Coast, previously West Africa's most-table and prosperous state, started last September with a mutiny by troops unhappy at being demobilised.

But it rapidly turned into a full-scale revolt, fuelled by discontent among northern Muslims at what they saw as discrimination by the government and the predominantly Christian south.