Doubts over Ivorian peace plans

Mr Gbagbo's party did not want the laws to be passed

Ivory Coast's former ruling party has said it has not seen the laws decreed by President Laurent Gbagbo, which are supposed to move on the peace process.

Mr Gbagbo said he had passed the laws on Friday but senior PDCI official Boa Thiemele Amoakon told the BBC that they have not yet been published.

New nationality laws and setting up an independent electoral commission were key demands of northern rebels.

The New Forces rebels had refused to disarm until the reforms were made.

South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, who brokered the peace deal, wrote to Mr Gbagbo asking him to enact the reforms.

Details

Ivory Coast has been in crisis since the New Forces rebels seized the north of the country in September 2002.

Mr Amoakon told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that while the laws seemed to be "good news for the country" he could not be sure because he has not seen the details of the reforms.

He said he hoped they would be published in Tuesday's newspapers.

Mr Gbagbo's ruling FPI party is hostile to the reforms agreed to in the South Africa brokered peace deal and had been blocking the law reforms in the country's National Assembly.

But the BBC's James Copnall in the Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan says Mr Gbagbo's use of exceptional constitutional powers to push them through could now lead to disarmament and pave the way for presidential elections in October.

Mr Gbagbo has used such a decree before to settle other rebel demands.

Nationality issue

In April, he cleared the way for opposition leader Alassane Ouattara to bid for election, which he had been prevented from doing in 2000 because his parents were not both Ivorian.

But our correspondent says nationality is a touchy subject in a country where 26% of the residents are considered foreign.

The rebels say the constitution discriminates against people from the mainly Muslim north, making it hard for people of foreign descent to get Ivorian citizenship.

Disarmament is due to start at the end of this month.

However, Mr Amoakon said that youth militias which support Mr Gbagbo should also disarm, along with the rebels.

Some 10,000 French troops and UN peacekeepers currently patrol a no-weapons buffer zone which separates the rebels from the rest of the country.