IVORY COAST?S president denied that the West African country?s fragile peace process was dead and renewed his call yesterday for talks with opposition leaders following days of deadly clashes in the main city of Abidjan.

Asked whether the recent killings signalled the end of a peace deal sealed in January of last year, President Laurent Gbagbo told French radio: ?No, because this is not the first eruption of violence since the...agreement.?

?The mission is not impossible,? he told France Inter. ?Once again, as in the past, I state that Ivory Coast?s future depends on dialogue. Those who have deserted the cabinet must return.?

Rebels and two Opposition parties suspended their participation in a power-sharing government in protest at violent clashes on Thursday which they say resulted in 162 deaths. The government says 25 people were killed in the fighting when police and the army stopped an anti-Gbagbo rally from taking place in Abidjan.

Ivory Coast?s Opposition has rejected Gbagbo?s call for talks and international mediators have denounced the escalation of violence in the world?s top cocoa grower. Thursday?s violence was the worst since September 2002, when a failed coup attempt triggered a civil war.

Rebels still holding the northern half of the country, despite an official end to the war last July, have said Gbagbo should step down.

Gbagbo, whose power base is in the mostly Christian west and south, says the rebels must disarm before political reforms included in the accord can be implemented and elections held in 2005. A United Nations force is due to start deploying there next month.