Mediator threatens to end peace talks, Bush tells Taylor to quit

West African mediators have threatened to suspend Liberian peace talks in Ghana unless the government and two rebel movements stop fighting by 10.00 GMT on Friday and reimpose a ceasefire. US President George W Bush has meanwhile urged the embattled Liberian President Charles Taylor to step down to make way for a lasting peace settlement to end 14 years of intermittent civil war. General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the official facilitator of the Liberian peace talks in Accra Ghana, said after meeting representatives of the three warring parties on Thursday that they should stop fighting by 10.00 GMT on Friday and send their delegations back to the negotiating table. "Otherwise, I will have no alternative than to suspend the Accra Peace talks," he told reporters. There was no immediate comment from the Liberian government delegates in Accra or from the two rebel movements; Liberians United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL. Over the past three days LURD has mounted a renewed attack on the Liberian capital Monrovia. Representatives of the rebel group, which has been fighting to oust Taylor since 1999, have said openly that they plan to continue the offensive until they capture the city. In Washington, Bush called for Taylor to step down in an African policy speech ahead of a planned trip to Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Botswana from July 7-12. "President Taylor needs to step down so that his country can be spared further bloodshed," the French news agency AFP quoted Bush as saying. "All the parties in Liberia must pursue a comprehensive peace agreement and the United States is working with regional governments to support those negotiations and to map out a secure transition to elections." Bush said Washington was "determined to help the people of Liberia find the path to peace," but he did not spell out whether the United States was prepared to spearhead an intevention force, as suggested by Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, who is currently leading a UN Security Council mission to to West Africa. The Liberian peace talks began in Ghana on June 4 under the auspices of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS). They led to a ceasefire agreement on June 17 which stipulated that an interim government, from which Taylor would be excluded, would be agreed upon within 30 days. But the truce started to break down within hours and by Thursday night full-scale fighting appeared to have resumed on all fronts. Liberian health minister said at least 200 people had been killed and 350 injured in the latest battle for Monrovia. Abubakar, a former military head of state of Nigeria, was appointed by ECOWAS to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table.On Wednesday night he suggested that a special African summit meeting might be needed to relaunch the peace process. He suggested that this might put pressure on the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone to reconsider its indictment of Taylor for war crimes. This was issued in connection with Taylor's support for rebel forces during Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. The indictment led to an international arrest warrant being issued for the Liberian leader and the freezing of his bank accounts in Switzerland.