United Nations troubleshooter Haile Menkerios flew back to South Africa on Tuesday to monitor the South African-mediated talks on resolving Zimbabwe’s political crisis, UN spokesperson Michele Montas said.
She told a press briefing that Menkerios, a UN assistant secretary general for political affairs, was first heading to Pretoria for consultations on the mediation process but also planned to visit Zimbabwe before returning to New York this weekend.
Power-sharing talks between representatives of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and of his opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai resumed in a secret location in South Africa on Sunday after a nearly week-long pause to allow negotiators to return home and consult with their leaders.
The talks had broken up last Tuesday amid suggestions from Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that the two sides were deadlocked in their bid to resolve the crisis spawned by Mugabe’s disputed one-man re-election win in June.
Menkerios is serving as the UN high-level representative on a so-called ”reference group” — which also includes the African Union and a security panel of the Southern African Development Community — set up to assist the South African mediators and provide regular progress updates.
The MDC had insisted on widening the South African mediation to other representatives after accusing Mbeki of being biased towards Mugabe.
On Monday, a South African official said bargaining between Zimbabwe’s rival parties was likely to stretch several days beyond the two-week deadline, which expired on Monday.
Deal ‘not far off’
Meanwhile, the Star reported on Monday that the two sides were close to a power-sharing deal that would turn Mugabe into a ceremonial president.
The report cited unnamed sources close to the negotiations as saying the agreement would make MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai executive prime minister.
Zimbabwean government and MDC officials were not immediately available for comment.
”They are down to detail now,” the newspaper quoted one source as saying. ”Although how long that will take is still unclear. But a deal is not far off. Not at all.”
Mugabe won a one-man presidential run-off last month, widely denounced as a sham after Tsvangirai pulled out of the race due to a wave of deadly attacks on his supporters.
The 84-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, has for his part insisted that the MDC has to acknowledge his victory in the run-off if there is to be any kind of power-sharing deal. – Reuters