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Mbeki to report on Zim progress
21/06/2007 18:27 - (SA)
Pretoria - South African President Thabo Mbeki will report to African leaders at the end of next week on the state of negotiations to solve Zimbabwe's political crisis.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said on Thursday that Mbeki would brief the Southern African Development Community on the progress with his Zimbabwe mediation efforts, most likely on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Ghana July 1-3.
Southern African states named Mbeki as mediator earlier this year at the height of an international furore over the Zimbabwe government's brutal clampdown on opposition leaders.
Mbeki advocates quiet diplomacy rather than public criticism.
Two Zimbabwe government ministers met earlier this week with leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change in Pretoria, but there has been no word about the outcome.
The talks have been cloaked in such secrecy that Pahad denied all knowledge of them, even though they were reported in Zimbabwe's official media.
Focus on elections
"As the Department of Foreign Affairs, we are not aware of any meeting that has taken place," he told a regular press conference.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday that the focus of the negotiations with the government was on presidential elections scheduled next March.
"We are bit anxious what needs to be done to create the conditions for free and fair elections," Tsvangirai said in Brussels during a a tour of European capitals. "We may actually be running out (of time) for it."
- AP
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