In the message, which was delivered to President Obasanjo at his Ota farm on the outskirts of Lagos by the Ivorian Ambassador-at-large, Ottro Zirignon Toure, President Gbagbo briefed the Nigerian leader on the latest developments in the search for peace and political stability in his country.

The message also expressed President Gbagbo`s gratitude to the Nigerian leader over his abiding interest in the restoration of peace to Cote d`Ivoire.

President Obasanjo pledged his continued commitment to peace in Cote d`Ivoire, and stressed that the issue of disarmament was central to the peace process.

On Friday, the UN Security Council endorsed the AU`s peace plan for Cote d`Ivoire, under which President Gbagbo will remain in office as head of state after his current mandate expires 30 October for one year. Elections scheduled for that date has been postponed.

The AU plan also provides for the appointment of a new prime minister acceptable to all parties.

Cote d`Ivoire, a former oasis of peace in turbulent West Africa, has been divided into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south since a failed military coup turned into a mutiny in September 2002.

About 6,000 UN peacekeepers and 4,000 French troops are deployed in the West African nation.

President Laurent Gbagbo at a news conference

Rebels see war ‘unless Gbagbo bows to AU plan’ Monday, October 17, 2004

CÔTE d’Ivoire would slide back to civil war if President Laurent Gbagbo did not surrender his power to a new prime minister under a plan backed by the United Nations (UN) Security Council and the African Union (AU), the rebel New Forces said yesterday. The council voted 15 to 0 on Friday to endorse the AU’s plan, drawn up by mediator President Thabo Mbeki, for a new government in the world’s leading cocoa-producing state. The AU said early this month Gbagbo should remain as head of state while a prime minister was appointed and formed a new government after elections, which have been indefinitely postponed from October 30. The AU wants the elections to be delayed by no more than a year while the rebels want Gbagbo to quit by October 30. “We fear there will be war again in Côte d’Ivoire because this man will never move from power,” Cisse Sindou, a spokesman for the New Forces, the main rebel group, said in a telephone interview from Bouake, in the north of Côte d’Ivoire. A prime minister “should be appointed as soon as possible” to remove Gbagbo from power, Sindou said. Desire Tagro, spokesman for Gbagbo, did not.......    More