Warring parties at a crisis summit on Ivory Coast are considering a timetable that would see disarmament begin by the end of August, an Ivorian government official said yesterday.

The summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra was called to try to pressure President Laurent Gbagbo, his political opponents and anti-government rebels to agree on a timetable for implementing a stalled peace deal.

The Ivorian parties, 13 African leaders and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan were spending their second day trying to break the deadlock yesterday.

The proposal being considered calls for the Ivorian cabinet to meet on August 5, for a bill to change the country’s controversial nationality laws to be introduced on August 15 and for disarmament to begin by the end of the month, the Ivorian official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.

To be considered an Ivorian national, both of a persons parents must have been born in the country. The law was used to disqualify popular opposition leader Alassane Ouattara from running in the 2000 presidential election won by Gbagbo.

A peace accord signed in France in January 2003 calls for a change in the eligibility criteria for presidential candidates, but Gbagbo has until now refused to move on the issue until rebel groups disarm.

But an official in his office said the president would be willing to urge members of parliament to pass the bill to change the nationality requirements.

Pro-Gbagbo women put on a show of defiance at the summit yesterday, declaring that Ouattara should never be allowed to become president.

Wearing dresses in the national colours of orange, white and green and singing the national anthem, the women marched behind Gbagbo as he entered the summit venue at a seaside hotel in Accra.

"We don’t want a foreigner to be president," said the group's spokesperson, Genevieve Bro Grebe. "He (Ouattara) will never be qualified to be president. He knows he's not Ivorian."

Disaffected soldiers from the north, where Ouattara has most of his support, launched an uprising in September 2002. The revolt has effectively partitioned the country, with UN and French peacekeepers now patrolling the front line.

The peace deal, known as Linas-Marcoussis, calls for bringing the rebels and the political opposition into a power-sharing deal with Gbagbo's government.

However, power has not been devolved from the president's office as stipulated in the accord, and the rebels and opposition parties quit cabinet earlier this year.

"I remind all Ivorian leaders of their individual personal responsibility in ensuring full and unconditional implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis agreement," Annan said during the public opening ceremony of the summit on Thursday.

He also said reconstituting the government is a "top priority."

The leaders of Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone and Togo are also attending the event, along with the chairperson of the African Union commission, Alpha Oumar Konare. – Sapa-dpa.