Chirac meets with President Gbagbo at the Elysee ahead of the Paris summit

PARIS, January 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In an attempt to save the draft deal hammered out by the main political parties and the three rebel groups in Ivory Coast, a number of West African leaders and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will meet in Paris Saturday, January 25, with high hopes the draft peace plan would be signed.

Among the attending heads of state are Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Charles Taylor of Liberia, John Kufuor of Ghana and Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali.

South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, who is the current head of the African Union, is also expected to show up.

Reached overnight Thursday, January 24, after nine days of negotiations at an undisclosed location outside the French capital, the peace deal stipulates that Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo stay in office, hand over some of his power and agree to constitutional changes, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The draft plan also states that all the political parties and the rebels will take part in a new national reconciliation government, where a new "non-partisan" prime minister will take on most of the government's powers.

The peace plan also urges the creation of an international surveillance committee to ensure the accord is respected and demands the rebel groups give up their arms in order to make peace prevail in the world's largest cocoa producer and once a haven of stability in West Africa.

The deal, in addition, offers amnesty for insurgents and promises the formation of a new army - comprising loyalists and rebels - with the help of the French.

However, President Gbagbo has not yet accepted the proposed peace plan, since it will clip the wings of his powers.

But French President Jacques Chirac called him on Friday, January 24, and urged him to seize such a golden opportunity to put an end to the four-month civil conflict which threatens to spill over into neighboring states.

For their part, delegations representing the Abidjan government and rebel groups holding the north and west of the country and opposition political parties all said they were satisfied with the peace deal.

"We are totally satisfied. We signed in full knowledge of what we were doing. Now we want peace back for good," said Guillaume Soro, Secretary-General of the main rebel Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), which launched the September 19 uprising that triggered the conflict.

In September 2002, the rebellion in Ivory Coast broke out when MPCI insurgents, dominated by Muslims and northerners, rose up protesting Gbagbo's policies of discrimination against people from the mainly Muslim north, triggering the most serious crisis to hit the West African country since independence from France in 1960.

The rebellion has fanned tensions between northern and southern groups.

The northern rebels say they oppose discrimination against mainly Muslim northern tribes by Christian and animist southern groups that have traditionally dominated the government.

As the rebellion spread and transformed itself into a civil strife against President Gbagbo, the country split into two.

The southern part is controlled by the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, the north by the rebel MPCI.

The MPCI now controls northern Ivory Coast, while two other rebel groups - the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) - control much of the west.

France, the former colonial power in Ivory Coast, has sent up to 2,500 soldiers to Ivory Coast, to ensure the safety of  some 20, 0000 French citizens and protect to protect French business interests in Ivory Coast.