UN approves Ivory Coast peacekeeper reinforcements

UNITED NATIONS, June 2 (Reuters) The Security Council today approved an extra 1,500 UN peacekeepers for Ivory Coast, boosting by 20 percent the force supporting a shaky peace deal in the restive West African nation.

About 7,000 U.N. soldiers and 700 international police officers, working with 4,000 French troops, are now in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, keeping the peace three years after a civil war that split the country into a government-run south and a rebel-held north.

The council's unanimous vote to authorize reinforcements followed months of wrangling between UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and France, who wanted even more peacekeepers, and the United States, which pays about a quarter of the UN peacekeeping budget and has been trying to keep down costs.

Annan had initially called for nearly 4,000 more UN troops and police officers to help ensure security ahead of elections due to be held in Ivory Coast by October 31.

After Washington objected, Annan temporarily reassigned a few hundred troops from the U.N. mission in neighboring Liberia as an interim measure.

France later offered a compromise of 1,671 more troops and police, but the United States counter-offered with just 1,500 more peacekeepers, council diplomats said.

Finally, after the council this week trimmed the UN peacekeeping force in Ethiopia and Eritrea by 1,000 soldiers, diplomats reached agreement on 1,025 more soldiers and 475 more international police officers.

In a resolution adopted by the 15-nation body, the council said it intended ''to keep under review the appropriate personnel levels'' for the UN mission in light of future developments in the region.

The resolution authorized the increased troop strength through December 15.

Reuters PDS VP0136