Incumbent Ouattara Calls for 'Reconciliation' ahead of ICoast Vote

Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara on Sunday issued a "message of national reconciliation" during a visit to a stronghold of his ousted predecessor Laurent Gbagbo, less than a month before the country's presidential elections.

Ouattara is the favorite to win the October 25 vote, seen as crucial to restoring stability in the country after post-poll violence in 2010 and 2011 left more than 3,000 people dead, unrest which was triggered by Gbagbo's refusal to step down and acknowledge Ouattara's victory at the ballot box.

Gbagbo is awaiting trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

"I have come here to issue a message of national reconciliation," Ouattara said, speaking to local and religious leaders in the central Ivorian town of Daloa.

"We must do everything we can to ensure that what happened to us... does not happen again."

Ouattara acknowledged that the town "experienced crimes, murders and painful periods".

In 2012, the ICC gave its prosecutor the green light to extend a war crimes probe back to 2002, noting that government forces attacked the village of Monoko-Zohi near Daloa, on November 27 and 28, 2002, "shooting as many as 120 civilians who were mostly immigrant plantation workers".

Local leaders in Daloa, for their part, called for the release of political prisoners and the return of people who had been exiled which, they said, would help improve the climate surrounding the October vote.

Ouattara is due to visit Gbagbo's home region of Gagnoa on Monday, weeks after demonstrations in which protesters torched vehicles and clashed with police in unrest that left one person dead.

The protests were called by part of the opposition after the release by the Constitutional Council of the official list of contenders running election.

Opposition groups urged anti-Ouattara marches on the grounds that both of his parents were not Ivorian -- the same objection cited ahead of the 2010-2011 violence.