In a nationally televised address, Gbagbo proposed dismantling the buffer zone that divides the rebel-held north from the government-run south. It would include direct talks with his adversaries, establishing a new national unemployment scheme for youth and combatants and a programme to assist people displaced by war to return to their homes.

He also called for a general amnesty, though he said it should not include economic crimes or crimes against humanity

Gbagbo said his plan represents national interests and comes after two weeks of consultations in November with members of civil society. He said the international community, while well meaning, had failed to end the crisis that erupted after the country’s failed coup in September 2002.

“In the face of the impasse caused by foreign solutions the time has come for Ivorians to fully take over the peace process,” he said. “It is a simple truth that each person has the right to seek his happiness himself… That is why, on behalf of the state of Cote d’Ivoire, I am proposing to Ivorians, but also the international community, a new approach.”

Gbagbo said the buffer zone patrolled by some 10,000 UN and French troops had become a physical obstacle to the country’s reunification, blocking free movement of goods and persons, and the return of displaced people to their homes.

“This boundary line they call a ‘confidence zone’ has in practice become an internal border dividing the country into two,” Gbagbo said. “Today it has no reason to exist; the armed conflict has ended.”

Gbagbo said that for the state to become fully functional a new government needs to be formed, but he also said that now was not the time.

Officially the current government is led, not by Gbagbo but by Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny in accordance with UN Resolution 1721 passed in November which widened his powers. However since then Banny and Gbagbo have been at odds.

In his speech, Gbagbo made no reference to the UN resolution which opposition groups continue to support. “[It] lays a way out of the crisis with the organisation of elections and social cohesion,” said communications adviser for the Rally of Republicans opposition party Amadou Coulibaly. “[But] that is only possible if the head of state works with the prime minister in the execution of his mission.”

Prime Minister Banny, who, according to the UN plan, is to lead the country until elections are held at the end of next year, announced on Sunday that public hearings would resume this week to determine whether thousands of undocumented Ivorians qualify for citizenship. As of Wednesday, the hearings had not yet restarted.

Gbagbo twice delayed elections because the hearings had not been completed and because combatants have not disarmed.

He has now said that the polls could be held by July 2007.