New York - The United Nations has sent a team of experts to Ivory Coast to help the troubled West African nation prepare for October presidential elections, its first since a 2002 civil war, the world body said on Friday.
The team will remain in the country for about two weeks and focus on helping the authorities set up a credible system for registering voters, "taking into account the compressed timeline in which elections are expected to be organised", spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
War broke out in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower, in September 2002 after a failed coup against President Laurent Gbagbo.
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The conflict, which killed thousands and threatened to spread turmoil around a volatile region, left the country split between a rebel-held north and government-run south.
A string of peace deals have since been agreed but never fully implemented, leaving Ivory Coast tense and fragile.
In the most recent pact, signed last month in South Africa, Gbagbo and rebels who had tried to oust him agreed to stop fighting, disarm militias and hold the presidential elections.
More than 10 000 UN and French troops who now patrol a buffer zone between the two sides are expected to help keep the countryside calm during the election campaign.
The UN Security Council is divided over a request by Secretary-General Kofi Annan for an additional 1 200 peacekeepers to guarantee security ahead of the voting.
The United States, which is assessed more than a quarter of the cost of UN peacekeeping, argues that a commitment to peace on both sides is more important than additional troops.
The 15-nation Security Council has until June 4, when the UN mission's current mandate expires, to decide whether to beef up troop levels.
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