Zimbabwe's president and opposition factions wrangled over power-sharing, but made no progress despite the presence of southern African leaders who pressed for a resolution to the months-long stalemate.
Zimbabwe's president and opposition factions wrangled over power-sharing, but made no progress despite the presence of southern African leaders who pressed for a resolution to the months-long stalemate.
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After more than 12 hours of talk produced no agreement on Monday, the deadlock was referred to a special summit of the Southern African Development Community to be held next week, Tomaz Salamao, executive secretary of the regional bloc, told reporters.
Salamao said the meeting would be attended by leaders of the group's nations next Monday either in South Africa or Botswana.
The region had hoped yesterday's talks would find a solution to the political wrangling and allow Zimbabwe's leaders to focus on ending an economic crisis that has half the country's people in need of food aid.
South Africa's current president, Kgalema Motlanthe, and former leader, Thabo Mbeki, Mozambique President Armando Guebuza and other regional leaders met all day with Mugabe, main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, head of a smaller opposition faction.
An agreement calling for power-sharing was signed in September but disagreements over allotting Cabinet posts has blocked its implementation.
The latest round of talks broke up around midnight yesterday and a disappointed Tsvangirai was one of the first to leave the Rainbow Towers hotel in downtown Harare.
"We came to this meeting so that we would be able to resolve the outstanding issues and conclude the power-sharing agreement. Unfortunately, there has been no progress made," he said.
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