Ban calls for end to violence
2008-02-01 14:41
Nairobi - United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon called here on Friday for Kenya's feuding political leaders to stop weeks of deadly violence sparked by disputed presidential polls, and to resolve the crisis through peaceful dialogue.
"My message to the government and people of Kenya is to stop this violence and to solve all these issues ... through dialogue in a peaceful manner," Ban said to journalists in Nairobi, where he joined mediation efforts led by his predecessor Kofi Annan.
"You are taking a very important historical responsibility at this critically important junction," the UN secretary-general said, sitting alongside Annan and representatives of negotiating teams for President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
"What I'd like to ask you is to look beyond these individual interests, look beyond the party lines, look towards the future, the brighter future of your country."
Ban arrived in Kenya on Friday to add his diplomatic weight to efforts to mediate the turmoil sparked by disputed presidential elections on December 27 that sparked weeks of unrest in which almost 1 000 had died and some 300 000 had been displaced.
Annan earlier resumed talks between three representatives each of Kibaki and Odinga after postponing them the previous day when an opposition MP was shot dead in the western town of Eldoret.
The killing - the second slaying of an opposition MP in three days - set off further clashes in the volatile western region.
Ban was due to meet with Odinga in Nairobi on Friday, after meeting with Kibaki on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Ethiopia the previous day.