THE FOREIGN Minister of the divided African state of Congo said yesterday his government would not negotiate with former president Mr Denis Sassou-Nguesso, whose followers are locked in battle with government troops.
"Nothing is negotiable," Mr Destin Arsene Tsaty-Mboungou, Foreign Minister in the government of President Pascal Lissouba, told a news conference in Paris.
Mr Tsaty-Mboungou said the only way out of the crisis, which has sparked open warfare in the capital, Brazzaville, was outside mediation to create conditions for a planned July 27th presidential election which the two men could contest peacefully.
Asked what had become of an accord which French President Jacques Chirac's office said had been reached with both sides for a ceasefire. Mr Tsaty-Mboungou replied: "No. For the time being the fire has not ceased. It continues to kill in Brazzaville but I hope that the appeals for peace which were made will be heard by both sides."
Mr Chirac's spokeswoman, Ms Catherine Colonna, said on Monday that the French leader had received verbal agreement for a ceasefire in telephone conversations with both Mr Lissouba and Mr Sassou-Nguesso.
France has sent 400 troops to reinforce the 450 already in Brazzaville, where they were sent in March in case foreigners needed to be evacuated from Kinshasa, the neighbouring capital of Mr Laurent Kabila's Congo.
French officials in the Congo said between 700 and 800 foreigners were flown out of Brazzaville on Monday in Transall military transport planes to the Gabon capital, Libreville.
French diplomats meanwhile repeated that the 850 troops Paris sent to Brazzaville would intervene solely to protect or evacuate foreign civilians.
Gunfire rattled through the city for a sixth day on Tuesday in fighting between soldiers and militiamen loyal to Mr Lissouba and a political militia loyal to Mr Sassou-Nguesso.
. In Sierra Leone, north-west of Congo, the leaders of last month's coup are demanding $46 million to step down and allow the return of ousted civilian president Mr Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, sources close to the coup leaders said yesterday.
"The coup leaders and their rebel allies are now demanding $46 million to step down to allow the return of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah," said one source.
He said the sum would be shared between a total of about 35 soldiers and rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) who have allied with the army since the May 25th coup.