West African leaders will meet rival factions from Ivory Coast later this month to try to get the country's struggling peace process back on track, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.
The talks would take place in Ghana's capital Accra on July 29th, Mr Annan said after meeting West and Central African heads of state at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
Civil war broke out in Ivory Coast after a failed coup in 2002. Although the conflict was declared over last year, no disarmament has taken place and the world's top cocoa grower is still split between a government-run south and rebel-held north.
A peace plan brokered by former colonial power France has looked all but dead in the past few months, after a crackdown on opposition supporters and an opposition boycott of a power-sharing government meant to establish stability.
"We had a very important and a very useful meeting where we had the chance to review the differences and how we move forward and I think all the leaders here were encouraged and we have a clear road map as to how to move forward," said Mr Annan.
Ghanaian President John Kufuor said the meeting would be attended by what he called all the "stakeholders" in the Ivorian crisis.
Regional leaders, Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, opposition parties and rebel leaders would be among those invited, a diplomatic source said.