Tensions remain high in Ivory Coast

Former South African leader Thabo Mbeki failed to settle an election row between Ivory Coast's presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara and incumbent Laurent Gbagbo yesterday. but appealed to both for a peaceful solution to the electoral crisis in the country that is struggling to emerge from a brief but intense civil war in the early part of the decade.

Mbeki had hoped to defuse a power struggle enveloping the country since an election which the electoral commission and international observers say Ouattara won -- a decision reversed by the Constitutional Council, backed by the armed forces chief.

The concern at present is that the dispute could now pit the army against pro-Ouattara rebels, or even divide the army itself.

The United Nations is temporarily moving 460 non-essential staff from its mission in Ivory Coast out of the country because of security concerns, while Ouattara's team at the Golf Hotel, where he is holed up under U.N. protection, held its first 'council of ministers'.

U.S. President Barack Obama has backed Ouattara, leading calls from the United Nations, France, the European Union, the African Union and West African bloc ECOWAS on Gbagbo to accept the election commission ruling.

ECOWAS leaders are due to hold an emergency summit on Ivory Coast Tuesday.

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