20101224
reuters

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo faces a cash crunch that could make it hard for him to continue paying the wages of soldiers who back him, after the West African regional central bank cut his access to funds.

The United Nations General Assembly, adding to international pressure on Gbagbo to concede defeat in a November 28 election, recognised challenger Alassane Ouattara as Ivory Coast's legitimate president.

Heads of state of the West African regional body ECOWAS will hold an emergency meeting in Abuja on Friday, the second in two weeks, to discuss the crisis in the world's top cocoa producing nation.

Most Ivory Coast newspapers on Friday said the country was keenly waiting the outcome of the meeting and some said the heads of states could decide on whether to send in the bloc's intervention force, ECOMOG. ECOWAS officials have declined comment ahead of the meeting.

Ouattara's prime minister said this week the international community should consider using force to oust Gbagbo.

Charles Ble Goude, leader of the powerful pro-Gbagbo "Young Patriots" movement, warned that sending a military force could lead to renewed war in Ivory Coast.

"In a union such as ECOWAS, when one country is in difficulties, you don't come and start a war in that country, but try to help find a solution. I don't know what would be the objective of an intervention force. Kill Ivorians?," Ble Goude said in an interview on RFI radio.

The standoff between the two presidential claimants has caused the deaths of more than 170 people, according to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which condemned what it said was evidence of human rights violations.