‘We will work with you to return our citizens,’ says president of Ivory Coast

The Ivory Coast will cooperate with Israel to help return asylum seekers back home, the country’s president told officials at the Knesset on Monday.

President Alassane Ouattara met with Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, and the two discussed the issue of the African country’s asylum seekers in Israel, in light of a court’s ruling that 400 of them will be expelled from the country by July 1.

“Citizens of the Ivory Coast don’t want to live in exile,” Ouattara said as he addressed the civil war that tore his country apart, causing some 250,000 of them to flee.

“We are trying to understand how many citizens from the Ivory Coast are in Israel,”  the president continued. He said not everyone who claimed he was from the country was telling the truth.

Ouattara said he looked forward to cooperating with Israel on the matter. “We will work with you to return our citizens,” he said.

On Sunday Ouattara met with President Shimon Peres, and the two discussed various ways to strengthen the ties between their two countries.