President Thabo Mbeki is to brief the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the progress with his Zimbabwe mediation efforts at the end of June.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Thursday this would probably take place on the fringes of the African Union summit in Ghana.
In a bizarre attempt to continue the media blackout on the process, Pahad said he was not aware of the widely reported meeting between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
”As Foreign Affairs we are not aware of any meeting that has taken place,” he said in Pretoria.
It was widely reported that delegations from the two parties had met in Pretoria over the weekend and agreed on an agenda on what the parties want to be done to halt the country’s collapse.
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa again repeated the South African Cabinet’s decision not to comment on the mediation process, not even to confirm a meeting or not.
”The view of the mediation team is that South Africa has been mandated by SADC; any report will be made to SADC rather than us splashing it all over the show before SADC knows what we are doing,” Mamoepa said.
”You should ask who is leaking … somebody is leaking despite our commitment not to say anything,” Pahad added. — Sapa