By Loucoumane Coulibaly ABIDJAN, March 26 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's rebel leader Guillaume Soro is ready to become prime minister if asked under the latest peace plan to reunite a country split in two since 2002 by civil war, a newspaper quoted him as saying on Monday. Soro, who leads the New Forces rebels who seized the north of the world's top cocoa grower in a brief 2002-03 civil war, signed a new peace deal this month with President Laurent Gbagbo which many observers think could see him made prime minister. "Making me the next prime minister is not a taboo subject. In 2005 I had already indicated that the prime minister's office should go to the New Forces," Soro told Ivorian daily North-South in an interview. "I would have no fear of taking over as prime minister." Since government and rebel negotiators began a month-long round of talks in neighbouring Burkina Faso in February, speculation has been rife that Soro would replace Charles Konan Banny, a banker appointed as prime minister under a previous U.N.-backed peace plan aiming for delayed elections in October. Soro was back in Burkina Faso on Monday for talks with the country's President Blaise Compaore, who brokered the deal. But reaction to talk of Soro's promotion has been lukewarm among Banny's traditional allies in the Democratic Party (PDCI), which ruled the former French colony for nearly 40 years and draws its staunchest support from the Akan people of Banny and former President Henri Konan Bedie, ousted in a 1999 army coup. Analysts say because the U.N. peace plan bars the incumbent prime minister from standing in planned presidential polls, Soro's promotion to the premiership could open the way for Banny to mount a challenge, potentially splitting the party's support. A Soro-led government may also be more likely to favour Bedie' longtime political rival Alassane Ouattara, a northerner whose barring from previous presidential elections was a key factor in years of unrest in what was once a stable country. Bedie has said naming a new government would be "inopportune" and his deputy has said that were Soro to accept the post of premier, it would mean the breakup of the "G7" coalition which groups the PDCI, Ouattara's Rally of the Republicans, Soro's New Forces and other opposition parties. Presidential elections initially due in 2005 have been twice delayed by a year because the country remained divided in two and due to delays disarming fighters and issuing identity documents to people who lack them -- a key rebel demand. The latest peace deal, signed by Gbabo and Soro in Ouagadougou on March 4, has already led to the creation of a joint army command centre to focus on demobilising militia fighters from both sides, raising hopes for reunification. France said last week it would send home about 500 of its 3,500 peacekeepers who are in Ivory Coast supporting more than 7,000 U.N. troops police a buffer zone between the rebel-held north and the government controlled south.
