The Nigerian government will release former Liberian president Charles Taylor, currently in exile in Nigeria, to an elected Liberian government, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported Thursday.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji was quoted as saying that Nigeria "will release Taylor only to an elected government in Liberia."

Nigeria had granted political asylum to Taylor in 2003 in an arrangement by the international community to end the country's 14-year-long bloody civil war. But Nigeria had since come under pressure from Western countries to release Taylor to stand trial at the special war-crimes court in Sierra Leone.

The court had indicted Taylor for crimes committed in Sierra Leone's war. However, the Nigerian government had on several occasions refused to hand over Taylor to the court. It said releasing Taylor would renege on the promise made to Taylor under the prompting of the international community.

However, Adeniji said if an elected Liberian government indicted Taylor and ordered that he should stand trial for any crime, Nigeria would oblige.

The minister said that Nigeria would then inform the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) of the request of the Liberian government. According to Adeniji, the ECOWAS and the AU were party to the arrangement that allowed Taylor to go on exile in Nigeria.

The transitional government in Liberia had called on Nigeria to end Taylor's exile because he had been interfering in Liberia's affairs.

But, Adeniji said Nigeria cannot take any action until Liberia produces evidence of Taylor's wrong doings. "As far as we are concerned, Taylor is behaving according to the terms of his asylum," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2005)