South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday he planned to go to Ivory Coast soon, as part of his role to seek an end to renewed violence between the West African country's government and rebels. Mbeki was in the middle of back-to-back meetings in Pretoria with Prime Minister Seydou Diarra and rebel leader Guillaume Soro and has hinted he wants to steer both parties back to a 2003 French-brokered power-sharing accord that has never been fully implemented. "I want to go to Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) very very quickly," Mbeki told reporters after talks with Diarra and ahead of his meeting with Soro. Thousands of foreigners have fled renewed fighting in the world's top cocoa producer which has also drawn in French peacekeepers, holding a buffer zone between government forces and the rebels, and prompted the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Ivory Coast. The African Union, which gave impetus to the U.N. sanctions, has mandated Mbeki to probe for a lasting solution to a conflict which risks destabilising the rest of West Africa. "We are hoping that he (Diarra) is going to be able to take us through all the detailed steps needed to honour and implement the agreement," Mbeki told reporters before meeting Diarra. --More 2007 Local Time 1707 GMT
