Cote d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo fired three opposition ministers from his coalition government Wednesday, including rebel leader Guillaume Soro, in a move that could aggravate the tensions in the West African country.

Gbagbo declared Tuesday that he would impose sanctions on opposition ministers for having boycotted government meetings since March, thus dealing a further blow to a 2003 French-brokered peace accord which brings rebels into a transitional government.

"We may be required to respect an equilibrium in the formation of government, but we are not required to link the fate of the republic to certain individuals," the president said Tuesday on state television.

Gbagbo also fired another rebel minister from the Technical Education and Training Ministry and an opposition member in charge of economic infrastructure.

Diplomats said Gbagbo had created a "crisis within a crisis" inthe past few days and the country is now going through one of its toughest periods since the civil war broke out in 2002 and split the country.

Soro, rebel leader and the dismissed communications minister, said Tuesday that he was recalling all rebel ministers from the power-sharing government in the south to the rebel-held north.

Soro had told his supporters that they did not need the central government any more if they can survive all by themselves.

A new UN report says at least 120 people were killed in clashes between security forces and opposition protesters in March after the entire opposition quit the government to protest a brutal state crackdown.

Source: Xinhua