Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara will hold a rare meeting on Thursday with his predecessors and longtime rivals Laurent Gbagbo and Henri Konan Bedie in an effort to reconcile the West African nation ahead of elections in 2025.
The three men have dominated Ivory Coast's fractious political scene since the 1990s. Bedie was president from 1993 until his ouster in a 1999 coup. Gbagbo governed from 2000 until his election defeat to Ouattara in 2010.
