Additional Reporting By Ali Al Shab, IOL Ivory Coast Correspondent

LOME, November 23 (News Agencies) - After weeks of discussions and negotiations, an agreement was reached in Lome between the Ivory Coast government and the northern military opposition, the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement.

The discussions were held under the mediation of Togo’s President Gnassingbe Eyadema. According to the agreement, both sides will respect a ceasefire and will return to the negotiation table in order to solve the national problems.

Both sides have also agreed to cooperate with the African communication committee in order to end the internal fighting and to establish a unity on the ground.

The agreement also agrees to the spread of an African peacekeeping force to monitor the ceasefire and the implementation of the agreed upon accord. Meanwhile, the government also pledged to respect freedom of the press and to provide the media with the facilitations to project the true picture of what is happening in the country.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Ivory Coast rebels have said they want a "serious" peace accord to end two months of conflict but accused the government of preparing for new fighting.

"The most important thing for the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement is that we do not end up with a deal that is banal, we want a serious accord that will be implemented," Guillaume Soro, the secretary-general of the MPCI, said in Lome on Friday night.

He was speaking after meeting for several hours with the mediator in the Ivory Coast crisis, Eyadema, and the secretary general of the African Union, Amara Essy, AFP reported.

"The MPCI believes in the talks in Lome and we hope that it will lead to lasting peace, but each side needs to make sure that out on the ground they behave in a way that will not jeopardize the talks," he added.

"Since yesterday our chief of staff has repeatedly told us that the government was moving troops around, even provoking our men. We will try to keep faith in these talks, but we are not surprised by what we see out there," he told journalists.

There was persistent talk on Friday of renewed fighting between the military and the rebels, army mutineers who took up arms against President Laurent Gbagbo on September 19 and now control half the country.

Witnesses told AFP that they saw men and materiel being moved around near the frontline towns in Ivory Coast.

The two sides signed a ceasefire on October 17, which is being monitored by French troops, and began peace talks in Lome two weeks later.

However, the negotiations soon deadlocked as the rebels demanded Gbagbo quit and he insisted they disarm.

Eyadema met with the rebels and government representatives on Friday night and warned that "renewed fighting or an attempt to find a military solution to this crisis will be a catastrophe."

"What is happening in Ivory Coast today has grave consequences for the rest of the region. Other countries are suffering as a result of it," Eyadema's spokesman said he had told delegates from the two sides and the secretary general of the African Union at a meeting in Lome.

He also appealed to the rivals to forgive wrongs on both sides of the conflict, which began when rebels took up arms against President Laurent Gbagbo on September 19.

"It is imperative that you as Ivorians forgive those things you hold against each other," he said.

Eyadema spoke as fear mounted on Friday that renewed fighting would break out between the two sides, who signed a ceasefire on October 17.

The mediator on Thursday tabled new proposals for a peace accord but sources close to the talks said the rebels were considering to reject the plan because it did not satisfy their principal demands.

Meanwhile, human rights organizations in crisis-torn Ivory Coast said on Saturday they were concerned about the activities of "death squads" who have killed several dozen people in the country's economic capital Abidjan.

The Ivory Coast government and rebels who control the northern half of the country signed a truce on October 17, but in spite of this and a dusk-to-dawn curfew abductions and murders continue in Abidjan.

"The growing insecurity in Abidjan is due to the death squads, unknown people who are sowing terror. It is like we are all living under a death sentence, it is very worrying," Martin Bléou, the president of the Ivorian League for Human Rights (LIDHO), told AFP.

LIDHO was trying to gather testimony from as many witnesses as possible because it believed "there are violations of human rights everywhere," he added.

The Ivorian Movement for Human Rights (MIDH) said it, too, believed the spate of killings was the work of death squads.

"There are death squads, we are sure of that, and their mission is to kill people, not to ask questions. They are not controlled by the normal military hierachy," Ibrahima Doumbia, the vice-president of the IMHR told AFP.

"We have counted 50 people who have been shot dead in Abidjan, and those are only the bodies we have seen. There have been certainly been more but we only list those cases that we see or where we have direct witnesses," he said.

The government has denied responsibility for the killings in Abidjan and hinted that it would be the work of the rebels who took up arms against President Laurent Gbagbo on September 19, plunging Ivory Coast into its worst post-independence crisis.

It said "people in camouflage fatigues" who have "infiltrated" the city and other areas that are held by the Ivorian army, were to blame for the killings.

On the first day of the uprising Ivory Coast's military leader Robert Guei was gunned down along with his wife.