President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma met on Thursday with a key Burundi leader to try to break the deadlock over a power-sharing deal to pave the way to elections in the central African country.
But a South African official said there are no immediate plans to bring together all of the political leaders from Burundi who have travelled here for two days of talks aimed at finalising an agreement.
Mbeki and Zuma were meeting with Senator Jean-Baptiste Manwangari of the Tutsi-led Union for National Progress (Uprona) party, which is seeking guarantees that its minority rights will be protected in a new power-sharing deal.
”The president and deputy president are in talks with the Uprona leadership now but there is no indication when a plenary meeting will start,” the official said.
Zuma, who has been leading the diplomatic drive in Burundi, met on Wednesday evening with several Burundi leaders for more than an hour but no statement emerged following the talks.
More than 300 000 people have died in Burundi since rebels from the Hutu majority took up arms in 1993 against the Tutsi-led government and army.
The Arusha peace accord signed in 2000 set up a transitional government whose mandate ends on October 31 and provided for elections to be held to choose a president, Parliament and local councils.
Zuma said on Tuesday that the talks in Pretoria to which 31 parties were invited were a last opportunity for Burundi’s leaders to reach an agreement before the transitional government ends its mandate.
The deputy president said that if an agreement is not reached in Pretoria, he will ask regional leaders to decide at a summit what course to take in Burundi. – Sapa-AFP