20110117
reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU-registered vessels have been barred from all new financial dealings with Ivory Coast's two main cocoa-exporting ports, EU sources said on Monday, as part of fresh sanctions imposed after November's contested election.

On Saturday, the EU froze the European assets of the two main ports in Ivory Coast -- the world's biggest cocoa exporter -- saying they were "helping to fund the illegitimate government of Mr Laurent Gbagbo".

But officials said the sanctions also barred EU-registered vessels and companies from entering into any financial transactions with the ports, unless covered by a contract agreed prior to the sanctions.

The sanctions are designed to increase pressure on incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to step down following the November 28 election, which he is widely believed to have lost.

"The assets of the ports in Europe will be frozen ... but freezing assets also has an implication, which is a prohibition to make economic resources available to the designated entities," a European Commission official who helped draft the sanctions told Reuters by phone.

"So that would essentially result in a prohibition to make business with those entities," the official added.

French government spokesman Gael Veyssiere said his country's interpretation of the sanctions was that EU companies or operators were barred from financial dealings with the Ivory Coast ports of Abidjan and San Pedro.

"I don't know if operators are obliged to have a direct dealings with the port itself, or if they deal with sub-contractors or other third parties," he said.

"But in any case, no EU company can write a check to any of the entities on the sanctions list."

The United Nations human rights office said at least 247 people have been killed in violence in Ivory Coast since the disputed presidential election, which risks sending the country back into civil war.