BBC News with Neil Nunes

West African leaders have told the

mutinous

troops who led last week's coup in Mali to restore constitutional order within 72 hours or face sanctions. The West African leaders resorted to meeting in Ivory Coast after earlier plans for talks with the coup leaders in the Malian capital Bamako were abandoned. Thomas Fessy has more.

The West African leaders are giving 72 hours to the coup leaders to restore constitutional order. They didn't say whether that meant getting the power back to the

deposed

President Amadou Toumani Toure or not. But restoring constitutional order, and if not, they would take sanctions, such as travel bans, freezing all financial assets of the coup officials and also threatening to cut off the financial links with the West African central bank.

Arab leaders meeting in Baghdad have called for the United Nations-backed peace plan for Syria to be

implemented

immediately and completely. The plan calls for the withdrawal of soldiers and heavy weapons from cities, the release of prisoners and humanitarian aid for Syrians who need it. However, only 10 leaders from the league's 22 member states were at the summit, as Wyre Davies reports.

Of the 22 Arab League nations, only nine of them - apart from Iraq - bothered to send their leaders here, and of course absent were many of those Sunni Gulf states which have advocated a much tougher line against Syria. So in agreeing to this UN Kofi Annan plan, there was a degree of unity here in Baghdad today. But the problem, as I say, is that many of those of the countries that advocate a much tougher line against Syria weren't represented at the highest level.