African Union agreed to tackle Ivory Coast crisis

The African Union agreed to set up a panel to help resolve Ivory Coast's political crisis, with its conclusions to be delivered within a month, a senior official said.

November's presidential election was supposed to open a more positive chapter in Ivory Coast's history, eight years after a civil war split the nation into the mainly Muslim north and the Christian south.

Instead, the poll provoked a violent crisis in which over 270 people have died, according to the United Nations, with both incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara laying claim to the presidency.

"The panel will conclude its work within a period not exceeding one month and the conclusions, which will be endorsed by the council, will be binding on all the Ivorian parties with which the conclusion would have been negotiated," the chairman of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, said late Friday after hours of negotiations in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

As the meeting, which came ahead of an African heads-of-state summit, got underway, the African Union's mediator in the crisis, Raila Odinga, said the political rivals must be forced into direct talks to find a solution to a crisis that has brought the nation to the brink of a civil war.

"This summit must send a strong and unequivocal message that the two parties must negotiate face-to-face," the Kenyan premier said. "Given its (Ivory Coast's) long history of strife and civil war, and with the preparations for armed conflict underway on both sides, a small spark could ignite a major conflagration which would also threaten the region's stability."

West African bloc ECOWAS had threatened to send in troops to the world's largest cocoa producer to remove Gbagbo. But, as the leader continues to cling to power with the backing of the army, talk has turned to finding a peaceful solution.

"The declared African Union and ECOWAS positions are not about the use of force," Odinga, whose two visits to Ivory Coast have produced no results, said. "Both organizations are committed to a peaceful resolution of the crisis."

However, he said Africa must be "ready to deploy other measures" if no negotiated settlement could be reached, warning the electoral problems in Ivory Coast could further entrench a culture of presidents clinging to power on the continent.

"Cote d'Ivoire symbolizes the great tragedy that seem to have befallen Africa, whereby some incumbents are not willing to give up power if they lose," said Odinga, who was appointed prime minister in Kenya after agreeing to share power with a president he accused of stealing elections.

The crisis began when Gbagbo, who has support in the south, refused to hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, the man the electoral commission declared the winner, who gets his backing from the north.

A Gbagbo ally on the constitutional council overturned the result, sparking unrest, condemnation and months of increasingly frantic international pressure aimed at removing the defiant leader.

International travel bans, asset freezes and attempts to block income from cocoa exports have all failed to dent Gbagbo's resolve.