President Gbagbo defended his government's purchase of weapons, as a way of preventing further coup attempts. The President claimed that the rebels had more weapons than his own army, although he did not specify what exactly he was buying to counterbalance that or for how much. The only purchase recently detailed by Ivory Coast authorities has been the Romanian helicopter contract.

Meanwhile, ECOWAS leader and Ghanaian President John Kufuor okayed the deployment of West African peacekeepers into the western regions of the Ivory Coast. - Adam Geibel