Paris - French and African leaders on Friday were to wrap-up a two-day summit, focused on Paris's special partnership with the continent, after forming a united front against United States calls for war in Iraq.
Africa's full endorsement of French President Jacques Chirac's position on the Iraq crisis came amid a firestorm of controversy over the participation of Zimbabwe's authoritarian President Robert Mugabe in the biennial gathering.
The 52 African nations attending the 22nd Franco-African summit, which opened on Thursday, backed France's call for continued and intensified United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq and urged Baghdad to show active co-operation.
"There is an alternative to war," the nations said in a joint declaration. "The use of force, which entails serious risks of destabilisation for the region, for Africa and the world, should only be a last resort."
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Chirac had obtained a waiver to an EU travel ban on the Zimbabwean leader France insists that stepping up inspections under UN Security Council Resolution 1441 is the best way to ensure Iraq's disarmament, but the US is pushing for a second resolution that would authorise military action.
Angola, Cameroon and Guinea, which are represented at the Paris summit, are currently non-permanent members of the Security Council. France is a permanent Council member with veto-wielding power.
While the joint statement on Iraq seemed to mark a victory for Chirac, he faced widespread international criticism over his decision to invite Zimbabwe's pariah president to the summit despite European Union sanctions.
Chirac had obtained a waiver to an EU travel ban on the Zimbabwean leader, defending the invitation as a way to confront Mugabe face-to-face over human rights abuses and lawlessness in his famine-ridden southern African country.
The French leader got that opportunity, following a dinner at the Elysee presidential palace in honour of the some 45 heads of state and government attending the summit, when the two men held private talks.
'I call again on all Ivorians to make the agreement they signed a concrete first step towards peace'
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