French Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin flew into the stronghold of Ivory Coast rebels today in a bid to end a civil war in the west African country.
Mr Villepin, on a two-day visit to the former French colony where some 2,500 French troops have been deployed to try and keep the peace, pressed President Laurent Gbagbo yesterday to commit to end hostilities.
"We're going to abstain from all acts of war on all fronts, north, centre, west," Mr Gbagbo said. "We're even going to demobilise our helicopters and stop our men in the positions they are in, because in the end we want peace."
Mr Villepin said peace talks later this month would be switched to Paris. France fears the conflict will spiral out of control after weeks of West African-brokered talks failed to make major progress.
Hundreds of people have been killed since the conflict started with a failed coup on September 19th and tens of thousands have been driven from their homes.
Mr Villepin was flown by French army helicopter from the administrative capital Yamoussoukro to meet representatives from the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI) rebels in their Bouake stronghold this morning.
The MPCI's political leader Mr Guillaume Soro said today he was not sure what would come of the meeting, but wanted the 2,500 French troops enforcing a shaky ceasefire in Ivory Coast to go home and let the rebellion take its course.
The French force, its biggest African intervention since the 1980s, is in Ivory Coast to protect foreign nationals, enforce a ceasefire and try to restore peace. Some 2,000 troops were flown in to beef up an existing French force there of several hundred.
A ceasefire has been agreed between the government, holding the mainly Christian south, and the MPCI, controlling the mostly Muslim north. But both sides claim numerous violations.