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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The World Bank warned Ivory Coast on Friday that further debt relief hinged on long-delayed elections taking place, and urged it to end quickly a political stalemate that has persisted since its civil war.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick expressed concern about any failure by the west African country to hold the elections this year.

"It would not be good," he told a news conference on a visit to country's main city of Abidjan. "The world has waited for these elections. They've been postponed in the autumn. They've now been postponed to March."

However, Zoellick said he had been encouraged that President Laurent Gbagbo, whom he met on Friday, seemed to understand the importance of moving quickly to a vote. Zoellick said he had told Gbagbo that "moving forward on those elections would enable us to move forward with further debt relief".

The polls were meant to take place in 2005 but have been repeatedly postponed, prolonging a political limbo since a war in 2002-3 split Ivory Coast in two and scared off investors.

"CONDITIONS"

Instability and repeated delays to presidential polls have scuppered Ivory Coast 's efforts to resume its place as a west African economic hub.

Badly needed reforms to the cocoa sector in the world's top grower, which supplies 40 percent of global demand, have been kept on the back burner until after the polls.