W.Africa security body starts talks on flashpoints

ABUJA, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- West Africa's top security body began emergency talks in Nigeria on Wednesday on mounting tension in and around Ivory Coast, officials said.

Mali's Foreign Minister Modibo Sidibe told Reuters that the one-day meeting of the security arm of the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had been delayed from Tuesday due to the late arrival of some delegates.

"The remaining delegates arrived this morning," Sidibe said. "We have a quorum now and the meeting is going ahead."

ECOWAS, which is based in Abuja, said on Tuesday that the meeting would discuss the deepening political crisis in Ivory Coast as well as fighting on the border shared by Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The talks would also deal with the internal situation in civil-war ravaged Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau where ECOWAS has been involved in peacekeeping.

Tension and uncertainty have been growing in Ivory Coast in the runup to a presidential poll on October 22 in which junta ruler General Robert Guei is one of 19 candidates.

The crisis centers on Guei's bid to bar former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, the leading opposition figure, from contesting. A dispute over Ouattara's nationality is at the root of the problem.

The government alleges that he is from neighboring Burkina Faso and therefore ineligible to run for president. Ouattara maintains he is Ivorian and political analysts fear his disqualification could trigger violent protests from his supporters.

An African mediation team including Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki visited Ivory Coast last week but Guei rejected its recommendation for a delay of the poll.

Ivorians and their regional neighbors are waiting with concern for a supreme court ruling by October 7 on which candidate is qualified to run.

ECOWAS is also confronted by a flareup of violence in the volatile triangle formed by the borders of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Guinea has blamed previous raids on a coalition of dissidents and Sierra Leonean rebels backed by Liberia.

The newly formed security council comprises defense and foreign ministers as well as military chiefs. Current members are Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

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