The UN Security Council on Wednesday welcomed the statement of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Cote d'Ivoire, recognizing opposition leader Alassane Ouattara as the winner of the run-off presidential elections in the country. The members of the Security Council welcomed the statement of ECOWAS and the African Union to recognize Ouattara as the president-elect of Cote d'Ivoire, Brooke D. Anderson, the deputy U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations who holds the rotating Security Council presidency for December, said in a statement read to the press here. 'The members of the Security Council welcome the communique of the chairman of the African Union, the statement of the African Union Peace and Security Council and the final communiques of the Dec. 7 ECOWAS Commission Extraordinary session of the authority of heads of state and government on Cote d'Ivoire held in Abuja, Nigeria,' the statement said. The statement was issued at the end of the closed-door consultations among 15 Security Council members, ending days of deadlock on how to respond to the post- election political standoff in the West African country. 'In view of ECOWAS's recognition of Mr. Alassane Ouattara as president-elect of Cote d'Ivoire and representative of the freely expressed voice of the Ivorian people, as proclaimed by the Independent Electoral Commission, the members of the Security Council call on all stakeholders to respect the outcome of the election,' the statement said. Choi Youngjin, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Cote d'Ivoire, has said that Ouattara has definitively won the run-off presidential election in the West African country, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here Wednesday. 'Choi said that the will of the people as expressed on the 28th of November is irrefutable,' Nesirky said. 'The members of the Security Council reiterate their support for the constructive role of the (UN) secretary-general in Cote d'Ivoire and stress the important role that the United Nations operation in Cote d'Ivoire under the leadership of his special representative, continues to play under its existing mandate,' the statement said. 'The members of the Security Council welcome efforts by the African Union, ECOWAS and countries in the region to assist in preserving peace and stability in Cote d'Ivoire.' On Tuesday, Choi briefed an extraordinary summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the elections, which were a key step in efforts to reunite a country split in two by civil war in 2002. The ECOWAS summit endorsed Choi's certification of Ouattara as president-elect, called on Gbagbo to 'yield power without delay' in the best interests of his country, and hailed the UN's 'key role' in the conduct of the elections under democratically acceptable conditions. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who repeatedly voiced his concerns over the current political standoff in Cote d'Ivoire, joined the world powers in recognizing Ouattara as the new president of the West African country after the runoff presidential election last Sunday, but Gbagbo refused to step down. The vote was a major step in the efforts to reunite the world's largest cocoa exporter after it was split by civil war in 2002 into a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north. Cote d'Ivoire's presidential elections have been delayed since 2005 due to tension between the rebel-held north and the south. However, it has generated a new crisis after the Constitutional Council threw out the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) proclamation of Ouattara as the victor, citing irregularities in his northern base, and awarded the victory to Gbagbo. On Wednesday, Choi publicly rebutted Gbagbo's claims of irregularities point by point, noting that even if contested tally sheets were thrown out, it was still clear that Ouattara had won. The complaints, used by the Constitutional Council, were based on two arguments: that the use of violence in nine departments in the north prevented people from voting, and that tally sheets there lacked the signature of the presidential camp's representatives. On the first issue, Choi stressed that a voter turnout as high as 81 percent could not possibly mean that there was sufficient violence to prevent people from voting, while reports on violence collected by the UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) shows that there were fewer violent acts in the north than in the west. On the second issue, he said he reviewed all tally sheets in the concerned departments and eliminated all those which lacked the signature of Gbagbo's representatives. 'The upshot was that, even such an exercise did not alter in any significant way the outcome of the second round,' he added. 'On this basis, I remain absolutely certain that I have found the truth concerning the will of the Ivorian people as expressed on Nov. 28.' Choi said he used three methods 'to arrive at the absolute conviction regarding the winner' -- First he deployed 721 UNOCI members throughout the country to find voting trends as early as possible; Secondly, he collected results from the 19 regional local electoral commissions, and these further confirmed the trends that it was almost certain who had won and who had lost. Finally, UNOCI examined all 20,000 tally sheets to see if there was a trace of fraud or manipulation, especially if they had been signed. A certain number had to be discarded but these were not concentrated in some particular regions but were spread randomly. UNOCI, with a current strength of over 9,000 uniformed personnel, has been supporting reunification efforts, of which November's vote, and the first round held in October following five years of delays, was a principal step. 