Ivory Coast minister defects

Ivory Coast Communications Minister Henri Sama on Wednesday confirmed his resignation from the military government and said he was at the disposal of the country's new president.

The text of his interview with Radio France Internationale follows:

[Sama] I have resigned.

[Q] For what reason?

[A] It is very simple. Laurent Gbagbo has won the elections. We are officers. We have said that we are men of honour. We must hand over power to him. I have resigned. I am there. I am at the disposal of Ivory Coast.

[Q] By Ivory Coast, do you mean the man you consider to be the new president, Laurent Gbagbo?

[A] Oh yes! I am at his disposal. The results are there. We must stay in a logic of legality.

We cannot continue along the path in which we have engaged ourselves. The president knows this. He knows the results of the elections.

Everyone knows about the (?rigging). The results are on the Internet. Each candidate has them. We have been defeated.

For our honour's sake, we should acknowledge that we have been defeated and we must hand over power.

(?We can have our chance) in five years. I think that we would have had an honourable exit. The elections were clean, and Ivory Coast had a chance to emerge enhanced from our quagmire.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.