UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - France pressed the UN Security Council to slap an arms embargo on Ivory Coast amid an upsurge of violence in the west African nation but ran into reluctance from China, diplomats said.
France had initially hoped for a vote as early as Monday evening on the measure, which would also include a travel ban and assets freeze against individuals.
Diplomats said China instead wanted to only threaten sanctions that would be imposed if a target date in future is missed for ending the violence and making progress on a stalled peace accord in the divided country.
Beijing, which generally opposes sanctions as an instrument of UN policy, wanted input from west African nations and the African Union, which is sending a mission to Ivory Coast on Tuesday led by South African President Thabo Mbeki.
"We support the mediation and we think, on this question of sanctions, that we should pay more attention to the opinion of the African Union and the west African community," a Chinese diplomat who asked not to be named told AFP.
After a meeting of junior diplomats from the 15-nation council, envoys said they were still hoping to get China, which has council veto power, to go along with a vote by Wednesday. "We are quite optimistic," one western diplomat said.
The resolution would also ask all nations to report to the Security Council within two months on steps taken to implement the sanctions.
Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, was divided after a failed coup in September 2002 tried to oust President Laurent Gbagbo, with rebels in control of the north above what is now a French and UN-manned buffer zone.
Peace agreements have made little progress and the situation took a deadly turn last week when Gbagbo's government bombarded rebel positions in the north, leaving nine French troops and a US aid worker dead.
France retaliated with air strikes that wiped out most of the air force of its former colony, a move that sparked anti-French riots in the main city Abidjan, where French troops deployed in an effort to restore calm.
The Security Council on Saturday upheld the right of French and UN forces to prevent "any hostile action," and the head of UN peacekeeping said that the French deployment had been made in coordination with the United Nations.
"It was agreed that the French would have the lead as far as Abidjan was concerned. We coordinated our deployments," Jean-Marie Guehenno said in an interview with AFP.
"It was agreed that the main effort of the UN would be in the zone of confidence," he said, referring to the buffer zone.
The ceasefire agreement that ended the civil war has led to little tangible political progress, and Gbagbo said he had ordered last week's air strikes on the north in an effort to reunite the country.
The Security Council condemned the attacks while the rebel New Forces on Monday again demanded the ouster of Gbagbo.
Guehenno said he believed the French assault on the Ivorian air force and the deployment of troops in Abidjan had helped to calm the tense situation in Ivory Coast, which has spiralled into decline since the conflict began.
"Before the French action, the talk was about: 'We are going to re-conquer the north,' which is certainly a very dangerous dynamic which would lead to the possibility of violence," he said.
"We are not for one candidate or another. We are there to support a (peace) process in (Ivory Coast), a process that has been agreed by the Ivorians. And that should not be forgotten," Guehenno said.
11/09/2004 - 06:03 GMT - AFP