A French-drafted resolution will remove the arms embargo and an
asset freeze and travel ban on six people, including former Ivory Coast
President Laurent Gbagbo who is on trial before the International
Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Ivory
Coast's President Alassane Ouattara attends a news conference at the
presidential palace in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, March 15, 2016.
The United Nations Security Council is set to lift a 12-year-old arms embargo on Ivory Coast on Thursday and renew the U.N. peacekeeping mission for a final year, France's U.N. envoy said.
The
West African state - the world's top cocoa grower - has emerged from a
decade-long crisis that culminated in a brief 2011 war to become a
rising economic star. The U.N. arms embargo was imposed in 2004 after an
initial 2002-2003 civil war.
A French-drafted
resolution will remove the arms embargo and an asset freeze and travel
ban on six people, including former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo who is on trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
U.N.
peacekeepers have been deployed in Ivory Coast since 2004 and a second
draft resolution will renew the U.N. mission for a final time until
April 30, 2017. There are currently some 6,900 U.N. troops and police in
Ivory Coast, according to the U.N. website.
French
U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre described Ivory Coast as a U.N.
"success story" and said both resolutions are due to be adopted by the
15-member Security Council on Thursday.
"This
is proof that this council's toolbox, whether we are talking about
peacekeeping operations or a sanctions regime, can indeed work, can
indeed be decisive ... in helping a country firmly get back on its feet
after a crisis," he said.
In 2014, the
Security Council partially eased the arms embargo on Ivory Coast and
removed a ban on its diamond exports, a measure that U.N. experts said
had failed to stop illicit trafficking.
Those U.N.
experts, who monitor the arms embargo, said earlier this year that
Ivory Coast rebel leader-turned-parliament speaker Guillaume Soro used
the 2011 civil war and its aftermath to acquire hundreds of tons of
weapons, many of which remain under the control of his loyalists in the
army.
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