West Africa leaders to meet Obama, Ban on Ivory Coast

ABUJA | Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:49am EST

ABUJA (Reuters) - A delegation from West African regional bloc ECOWAS will meet President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week to discuss the crisis in Ivory Coast, Nigeria's foreign minister said.

"The delegation is led by President (Ernest Bai) Koroma of Sierra Leone and comprises the president of the ECOWAS Commission, James Victor Gbeho, myself and our ambassador in Washington," Odein Ajumogobia told Reuters on Tuesday.

Nigeria's state news agency said the delegation would meet Obama in Washington on Wednesday before heading to the United Nations in New York to meet Ban and Security Council members on Thursday.

International efforts to end a political stand-off in the country, which is the world's top cocoa producer, have so far failed.

The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, is locked in a power struggle with rival Alassane Ouattara, who was declared winner of a November 28 election by United Nations-certified results before they were overturned by a pro-Gbagbo legal body, which alleged fraud.

ECOWAS has threatened to use force to remove Gbagbo.

Ajumogobia said on Monday Nigeria wanted U.N. backing for an ECOWAS intervention in Ivory Coast to prevent it slipping into a civil war that could destabilize the region.

The United States and the European Union have imposed travel bans and other sanctions on Gbagbo and his inner circle but fellow West African nations will need to take a lead if there is to be any attempt to remove him by force, diplomats say.

Britain has said it would give support at the United Nations for the use of force if West African nations wanted it but there has been opposition from other U.N. members, including Russia.

(Reporting by Felix Onuah and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/PoliticsNews/~3/J7NU7FOLC0M/idUSTRE70O26P20110125

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