|
Zim talks held up
22/07/2008 18:04 - (SA)
Harare - Talks that was to begin in SA on Tuesday on ending Zimbabwe's crisis was struggling to get off the ground with the chief negotiators yet to fly out of Harare, opposition and ruling party sources said.
Government sources said Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Labour Minister Nicholas Goche - the chief negotiators for the ruling Zanu-PF party - had been locked in a cabinet meeting all afternoon and were not now expected to fly until Wednesday morning.
"Ministers Chinamasa and Goche are still attending the cabinet meeting. We are not sure what time it will finish," one official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"We were initially expecting them to leave in the afternoon, but they should now leave tomorrow morning."
Meanwhile a source in the larger faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said its top negotiators, party chairperson Lovemore Moyo and secretary-general Tendai Biti, had also yet to leave.
"Chairperson Lovemore Moyo is expected to leave tomorrow. He will connect his flight direct from Bulawayo," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Representative arrived in SA
However a source in the smaller faction of the MDC, which is also taking part in the talks in Pretoria, said its representative had already arrived in SA.
A spokesperson for SA President Thabo Mbeki, the chief mediator between the opposition and Zanu-PF, said that while preliminary talks had begun, full-scale negotiations would "begin in earnest tomorrow".
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed up to the talks in Harare on Monday.
|
News
Zimbabwe Special Report
