[ 2011-04-20 ]

Foreign Minister Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni

Ghana Embassy in Ivory Coast not closed but... - Mohammed Mumuni
Foreign Minister Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni has denied
media reports that the Ghana Embassy in Abidjan
has been closed.

He said circumstances at the embassy had been
exaggerated and misreported.

The New Statesman newspaper Wednesday reported
that “the entire staff of Ghana’s embassy in
Abidjan, including the Ambassador, Col E.K.T.
Donkor (rtd), have been evacuated to Ghana and the
mission closed down.”

”This evacuation, according to embassy sources,
was forced by perceived or real threats to the
lives of the staff of the embassy after Laurent
Gbagbo’s arrest and Alassane Ouattara taking
full charge as the legitimately elected president
of Cote d’Ivoire,” the paper added.

The paper quotes an unnamed diplomatic source in
Abidjan as saying the decision by Accra to
evacuate its staff was “strange and paradoxical
and probably fed by paranoia and guilt.”

The pro-opposition newspaper believes “The
writing was on the wall as soon as President J.E.A
Mills of Ghana uttered the controversial dzi wo
fie asem words which betrayed the regional body,
ECOWAS, and, by extension, the wish of the
majority of Ivorians to have their electoral
mandate respected by the defeated incumbent
president, Laurent Gbagbo.”

Foreign Minister Mumuni however accused the paper
of exaggerating a routine action by the
government.

He told Joy FM’s Super Morning Show sit-in host
Bernard Nasara Saibu that in the immediate
aftermath of Mr Gbagbo's arrest, the government,
after an assessment of the security situation in
that country came to the conclusion that it was
not safe to keep non-essential embassy staff in
Abidjan. In view of this, non-essential staff were
evacuated from that country.

“But to the best of my knowledge and
understanding and belief, [the embassy] is open
and functioning even though at a low profile,”
he stressed.

The minister is not in position to confirm if the
Ambassador was flown to Accra Monday except to say
that Col. Donkor (rtd) is invited routinely to
Ghana to brief the president on the situation in
the Ivory Coast.

Dispelling suggestions that there is diplomatic
tension between Ghana and her western neighbour as
a result of government’s perceived tacit support
for deposed former president Gbagbo, the minister
said relations between the two countries were as
strong as ever.

“Ghana and Ivory Coast have full diplomatic
relations; we are co-operating as leading members
of ECOWAS, [and] Ghana is committed to the peace
process in La Cote d’Ivoire,” he stated.

Alhaji Mumuni is not also able to tell if
president Mills has called Alassane Ouattara, to
congratulate him on his assumption of office after
the capture of Mr Gbagbo who refused to hand over
power after losing elections in November last
year.

“I wouldn’t be able to say precisely, whether
he (President Mills) did (called Ouattara) or not
but I do know certainly that for the longest
while, he had maintained quiet diplomacy and that
he had engaged both Mr Alassane Ouattara and
president Gbagbo in the past,” he emphasized.

Source - MyjoyOnline

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