British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Tuesday he hoped to discuss with President Thabo Mbeki his recent visit to Zimbabwe.
Straw, who arrived in South Africa on Monday on a two-day official visit, told reporters in Soweto that Britain and South Africa had not had a formal discussion about Mbeki’s visit.
”I look forward to meeting President Mbeki soon so he can brief me on the nature of the visit and perhaps give us details about the negotiations.”
Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawian President Bakili Muluzi visited Zimbabwe last week in an effort to open dialogue between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai with a view to addressing the economic, political and social problems besetting that southern African country.
The mediation effort ended inconclusively after Mugabe said he was willing to talk with Tsvangirai, but only if the opposition leader withdrew his party’s court challenge to the results of the controversial presidential election last year that declared him the winner.
Speaking during a tour of Soweto, where he visited an environmental regeneration project and a school football coaching clinic organised by England’s football association, Straw said Zimbabwe’s social and economic crises were a concern to Britain.
”We have always been very concerned with the developments in Zimbabwe and that is why I hope to discuss unfolding events in that country when I pay a courtesy call to Mbeki on Wednesday,” he said. – Sapa