UN council set to lift Code d’Ivoire arms embargo

The UN Security Council is set to lift a 12-year-old arms embargo on Code d’ivoire on Thursday and renew the UN peacekeeping mission for a final year, France’s UN envoy said.

The West African state is world’s top cocoa grower and has emerged from a decade long crisis that culminated in a brief 2011 war to become a rising economic star.

The UN 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.

The six includes the former Ivory Coast President, Laurent Gbagbo, who is on trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

UN peacekeepers have been deployed in Ivory Coast since 2004 and a second draft resolution will renew the UN mission for a final time until April 30, 2017.

There are currently some 6,900 UN troops and police in Ivory Coast, according to the UN website.

French UN Ambassador Francois Delattre described Ivory Coast as a UN 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 Code d’ivoire and removed a ban on its diamond exports, a measure UN experts said had failed to stop illicit trafficking.

(Reuters/NAN)