The United Nations Security Council Friday authorized a full one-year peacekeeping operation for Cote dIvoire and mandated nearly 7.000 UN personnel to monitor the comprehensive ceasefire agreement the West African countrys warring parties reached last May.
In a brief meeting, the 15-member Council voted unanimously to establish the 6.240-member force, called the UN Operation in Cote dIvoire (UNOCI), for an initial period of 12 months starting on 4 April. The mandate of the small existing mission, MINUCI, will end on the same day.
UNOCI will liaise with the former combatants – the National Armed Forces of Cote dIvoire and the Forces Nouvelles – and, along with the French force already stationed there, promote “the re-establishment of trust between all the Ivorian forces involved,” the Council resolution said.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Council that “a strengthened United Nations presence in Cote dIvoire will make it easier for the Government of National Reconciliation to implement the disarmament, demobilization reintegration and repatriation programme” for ex-combatants, which Prime Minister Seydou Diarra said would begin on 8 March.
The deployment of a UN operation in Cote dIvoire would also have a positive impact on efforts to stabilize the West African sub-region, an area where UN offices and missions have already begun to cooperate more closely, he said.
In that regard, he voiced his intention to present proposals in March concerning a residual UN presence in Sierra Leone, where the current peacekeeping mission, UNAMSIL, is being reduced.
Mr. Annan lauded Ivoirian President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Diarra, “for taking, together with the Forces Nouvelles, important political initiatives which have opened the way out of the impasse in the peace process.”
He warned, however, that “some hard-line elements” among the Ivoirian parties remain determined to undermine the peace process. – They must not be allowed to succeed, he said.
The Secretary-General also appealed to member countries to back the new initiative.
– I hope and trust that, guided by a spirit of solidarity, the international community will provide all the necessary resources, including well-equipped and well-trained military and police personnel, for the operation to be fully effective, said he.
Kilde: FNs Nyhedstjeneste.
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