Besieged Gbagbo clings to power in Ivory Coast

Surrounded by troops backing Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader, strongman Laurent Gbagbo huddled with his family in a bunker and played his final hand, trying to wrest last-ditch concessions as he negotiated the terms of his surrender.

Down the hill from his luxurious compound, dozens of Mr Gbagbo's soldiers were seen entering a church where they stripped off their uniforms and abandoned their weapons.

Earlier, Mr Gbagbo's three top generals said they had ordered their men to stop fighting, the United Nations said in a statement.

The developments spell game over for a man who refused to accept defeat in last year's election and took his country to the precipice of civil war in his bid to preserve power.

His security forces are accused of using cannons, 60 mm mortars and 50-calibre machine guns to mow down opponents in the four months since his rival, Alassane Ouattara, was declared the winner of the contested vote.

Choi Young-jin, the top United Nations envoy in Ivory Coast said by telephone that Mr Gbagbo's surrender was "imminent."

"He accepted (the) principle of accepting the results of the election, so he doesn't have many cards in his hands," Mr Choi said. "The key element they are negotiating is where Mr Gbagbo would go."

Then, just as he appeared to be on the brink of stepping down, Mr Gbagbo, in his first interview in months, defiantly insisted he had no intention of surrendering power.

"I won the election and I'm not negotiating my departure," he told French TV station LCI by telephone from his bunker. "I find it absolutely incredible that the entire world is playing this ... game of poker."

Veteran observers of this nation on Africa's western edge say the turn of events could have been taken from a biography of Mr Gbagbo.

In Abidjan, he has long been called Le Boulanger, French for The Baker, because he rolls people in flour, a reference to a popular expression meaning to manipulate and deceive others.

The election that was finally held last year was supposed to take place five years earlier.

He was given so many extensions that people here have lost count of how many times the poll was rescheduled.

"I think he's playing for time," said a senior diplomat who has closely followed events and spoke on condition of anonymity because he had not been cleared to speak to the press. "His aim is always to buy himself just one more day."

France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Mr Gbagbo would be required to relinquish power in writing and must formally recognise Mr Ouattara, the internationally backed winner of the November election.