国际英语新闻：Ghana says not to support military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire

ACCRA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- President of Ghana John Evans Atta Mills said on Friday that his country would not support the use of military force to overthrow incumbent President of Cote d'Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo as it would not bring peace to the neighboring country.

Meeting the media to mark the beginning of his third year in power as president of the West African country, President Mills expressed his fear that the political crisis in Cote d'Ivoire would have rippling effect in Ghana.

Although Mills was one of the leaders of the Economic Community of West African States who signed a communique asking Gbagbo to step down, Ghana is unable to contribute troops to remove Gbagbo.

"It is not for Ghana to choose a leader for Cote d'Ivoire. I have spoken to both (Alassane) Ouattara and Gbagbo and I can not make it public but I do not think the military operation will bring peace to the nation," He declared.

Ghana has already sent as many as 500 troops to Cote d'Ivoire and hundreds of other troops in peace keeping missions in other parts of the world. Its military is already over stretched.

President Mills disclosed that Ghanaian peacekeeping officers had informed him that they could not contribute more troops for peace keeping missions.

However, Mills said that Ghana has been closely monitoring the situation in the world's largest cocoa producer and would ensure that peace is restored in the land.

He denied the media reports that Ghana is sending ammunition to Cote d'Ivoire to support incumbent President Gbagbo to chase out rival Alassane Ouatarra.

On the recent price increase of petroleum products, Mills said the decision to increase the prices of petroleum product by about 30 percent is because the government could not continue to subsidize fuel as that is a huge cost to the country.

"We are also unable to reduce the prices now because at the beginning of 2009 (when he came to power), we met 1.488 billion Cedis (1.1 billion US dollars) debt at the Tema Oil Refinery and apart from that prices of crude oil in the last 14 months have gone up phenomenally", he said.

The Tema Oil Refinery is the only oil plant in the country, using crude oil imported from other countries.

The National Petroleum Authority (NPA), for the first time in 14 months, announced a 25 percent to 30 percent increase in diesel and petrol prices on Monday.