Ivorian Leader Hints at Concession

Rebel groups meeting near Man, a western city they control, insisted Thursday that a French-brokered peace deal must stand, while President Laurent Gbagbo hinted at a compromise that would satisfy the rebels and his own followers.

“All arrangements are possible,” Gbagbo said in brief remarks on state television, his first in a week on a peace accord that has sparked outrage among his followers in the government-held south of the country.

The United Nations ordered all nonessential staff out of the country. Thousands of other foreigners already have evacuated amid violent loyalist riots and protests.

Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, has lost half its territory to the rebels during a 4-month-old civil war. The peace deal, reached Jan. 24 after two weeks of talks, seeks to end the war by bringing rebels into a power-sharing government until 2005 elections.

But the pact has triggered anti-foreigner rampages and near-daily mass marches in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial capital. Government supporters have blamed French mediators for a deal the loyalists see as giving too much power to the rebels.

“The agreement will be applied,” western rebel leader Felix Doh said from Man, saying the rebels would ensure adherence to the accord “by all means possible. We forced no one to sign anything in Paris.”

Today, Gbagbo is to speak to the nation on the peace deal, aides said.

Gbagbo’s national TV address, repeatedly postponed, had been tensely awaited since he returned from France on Jan. 26. Initially, Gbagbo said he had no choice but to compromise with rebels since he had been unable to defeat them on the battlefield.

On Thursday, he said the accord was plagued with “many points of contradiction.” He said the differences might be solved with unspecified “political arrangements” -- hinting at a compromise.