Ivory Coast envoy: World shouldn't decide our elections (Israel remains neutral)

Jerusalem Post ^ | 01/06/2011 01:51 | HERB KEINON

[Pan_Yan]

Israel neutral in crisis facing friendly African state; Ambassador Kessie Raymond Koudou tells 'Post' country is not on verge of civil war. Israel is taking a decidedly neutral stand in the crisis in the Côte d’Ivoire that could hurtle that country down the path toward a new civil war.

Israel is “not saying what to do, or preaching to others what to do, hoping that the sides will be able to solve the problems,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Wednesday.

Israel knows and has had good relations with both President Laurent Gbagbo and his chief rival, Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister and International Monetary Fund official, Palmor said.

Both men are claiming victory in November’s presidential election run-off, with Gbagbo defying the world – the UN, the EU, the African Union and the 15- nation block of West African Countries called ECOWAS – and refusing to accept defeat and leave power.

The Côte d’Ivoire’s ambassador in Israel, Kessie Raymond Koudou, said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in his Ramat Gan office that he understood the Israeli position, and did not level any criticism against the government. What he doesn’t understand was the world, which he said was trying to determine for his country what institutions can determine the fate of an election.

...

“It is not for the world to say who is the president,” Koudou said, adding that Côte d’Ivoire has its own legitimate and sovereign institutions that determine these matters, the highest being the Constitution Council.

...

Koudou blamed France for leading the international community on the issue against Gbagbo, saying that Paris still thought it was the country’s colonial ruler and preferred Ouattara because “when he was the prime minister [in the early 1990s] he did a lot to promote French interests.”

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Pan_Yan.

Israel is "not saying what to do, or preaching to others what to do, hoping that the sides will be able to solve the problems," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Wednesday. Israel knows and has had good relations with both President Laurent Gbagbo and his chief rival, Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister and International Monetary Fund official, Palmor said. Both men are claiming victory in November's presidential election run-off, with Gbagbo defying the world -- the UN, the EU, the African Union and the 15- nation block of West African Countries called ECOWAS -- and refusing to accept defeat and leave power... [Ivory Coast's] ambassador in Israel, Kessie Raymond Koudou... blamed France for leading the international community on the issue against Gbagbo, saying that Paris still thought it was the country's colonial ruler and preferred Ouattara because "when he was the prime minister [in the early 1990s] he did a lot to promote French interests."

[Slings and Arrows]

What’s Hebrew for “We ain’t got a dog in this fight?”