Envoys of Ivory Coast foes agree new peace plan

OUAGADOUGOU, Mar 3 (Reuters) Negotiators for Ivory Coast's president and his rebel opponents agreed a new peace plan today to reunite the divided West African state and hold elections after talks in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

They said President Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces rebels who seized the northern half of the world's top cocoa grower in a brief 2002-2003 civil war, would sign the deal tomorrow in Burkina's capital Ouagadougou.

''We have initialled it to confirm to our superiors that this text conforms with our discussions,'' said rebel representative Louis Dacoury-Tabley, who is minister for solidarity and war victims in a transition government created under a UN-backed peace plan which has so far failed to reunite the country.

The international community has welcomed the talks, which began on February 5 at Gbagbo's instigation and are perceived as a home-grown effort to restore peace.

Presidential spokesman Desire Tagro, representing Gbagbo at the negotiations, said the deal would be signed in the presence of Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore who brokered the talks as head of the Economic Community of West African States.

''The discussions involved practical and direct solutions to the problems currently facing Ivory Coast, which must remove the obstacles to resolving essential questions like identification, disarmament and the conduct of fair elections,'' Compaore said at a ceremony where Dacoury-Tabley and Tagro initialled the text.

PREVIOUS DEALS A string of international peace deals, including the UN-backed peace plan which foresees long-delayed elections by the end of October, have foundered as government, rebel and opposition sides squabble over how they should be implemented.

The Ivorian press has been rife with speculation that any deal in Ouagadougou would appoint Soro as prime minister, replacing central banker Charles Konan Banny who was named by the UN-backed plan to oversee disarmament and hold elections.

Little official information about the content of the negotiations has been made public and there has been no confirmation of how it would address the post of premier.

Soro was expected to meet the heads of the main opposition parties in Abidjan later today to discuss the outcome of the talks before returning to Ouagadougou ''for the closure of direct dialogue'' a statement from the rebels said.

Though fighting during the civil war was brief, the former haven of peace in conflict-prone West Africa has seen poverty spread while the political crisis endures. The former French colony has been destabilised by frequent rioting and protests.

More than 11,000 peacekeepers, both UN and French troops, patrol a buffer zone to keep the Ivorian government and rebel forces apart.

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