ACCRA, Aug. 14 — Liberia’s new president, Moses Blah, met the leaders of rebel factions in Ghana on Thursday for talks aimed at ending civil war, Ghana’s foreign minister said.
Nana Akufo-Addo told Reuters that Blah met in private with Sekou Conneh of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) group and Thomas Nimley of a smaller faction known as Model.
Between them, the factions control more than three-quarters of the West African country.
”They are meeting as we speak,” Akufo-Addo said, adding that he hoped a peace accord would be signed on Saturday.
Blah, who took office on Monday from now-exiled pariah leader Charles Taylor, is due to hand over in October to an interim president chosen by warring factions and political parties meeting in Ghana.
But the rebels are wary of Blah as an old Taylor ally.
Nearly 14 years of strife in Liberia and closely entwined conflicts in the region have cost an estimated quarter of a million lives.
LURD rebels began pulling out of the capital Monrovia on Thursday to hand over to West African peacekeepers following recent fighting that left at least 2,000 dead.
Source: GhanaWeb
