20110228
reuters

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The United Nations has accused Belarus of breaking an arms embargo against Ivory Coast by delivering attack helicopters to Laurent Gbagbo, the leader who has resisted three months of pressure to quit after a disputed election.

But Gbagbo's government denied the U.N. report as a "lie" and U.N. diplomats told Reuters on Monday that the allegation had not been confirmed. They said the accusation by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was based on reports he had received from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast.

"We're trying to figure out if this allegation is credible," a Security Council diplomat told Reuters. "There's a lot of confusion."

The allegation follows a week of gun battles between forces loyal to Gbagbo and supporters of his rival Alassane Ouattara, almost universally recognised by the outside world as winner of the November 28 presidential election.

The stand-off risks pushing the world's top cocoa grower back into full-blown civil war.

Gunfire erupted close to the centre of Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan on Monday, after a week of fighting in which a northern suburb was seized by insurgents who briefly knocked out the state TV and army communications transmitter.

November's election was meant to heal divisions sown by a 2002-3 civil war that left the country divided into a rebel-run north and government-run south, but has only worsened divisions.

The U.N. said the number of Ivorian refugees in Liberia had reached 68,000, with another 40,000 internally displaced.