President Laurent Gbagbo is to meet several west African leaders this weekend to discuss restive Ivory Coast, beginning Saturday with talks in the Togolese capital Lome with veteran Togo President Gnassingbe Eyadema.
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The two presidents are then expected Sunday in Abuja, where Ghana's John Kufuor and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo will be waiting to discuss how 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. Eyadema is considered a close ally of the embattled Ivory Coast leader and has been urged by the Ivorian political elite to get more involved in resolving the low-level conflict and political bickering splitting the country between the rebel-held north and the government-run south. The Togolese leader was tapped by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to mediate two months of talks in late 2002 between the Gbagbo government and the rebel movements who rose against it. His prime minister, Koffi Sama, also held talks earlier this month with the main protagonists in the crisis that has had economic implications for the region once-dependant on Ivory Coast's stability and thriving, cocoa-based economy. |