South African President Thabo Mbeki is concerned about the slow pace of informal talks aimed at resolving the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, his office said on Thursday.
”The president is very worried that the talks are moving too slowly,” his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
Mbeki met leaders of the Zimbabwean opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in Pretoria on Sunday ”to touch base and to discuss how to move the process forward a little bit faster,” Khumalo said.
The president talked with general secretary Welshman Ncube, vice-president Gibson Sibanda and other senior MDC leaders. ”He [Mbeki] invited them,” Khumalo said, adding that the meeting went on for a ”very long” time.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai could not accompany the delegation as his passport was confiscated after he was charged with treason two years ago.
Zimbabwe plunged into turmoil in 2002 after President Robert Mugabe won the elections, which the MDC said was rigged.
Mbeki has been calling on Mugabe and Tsvangirai to meet to resolve the crisis in the country. The deadline to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis, which Mbeki set himself last year, lapsed on Wednesday. – Sapa