Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and South African President Jacob Zuma were expected to hold discussions on the sidelines of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen regarding ongoing negotiations in Harare to settle contentious issues troubling the power-sharing government there.
Pretoria sources said Mr. Zuma was unhappy with the slow pace of the talks on a range of issues including top appointments, and was taken aback by the stance adopted by Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF in a party congress on the weekend vowing not to make concessions to the Movement for Democratic Change until Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai campaigns for the West to lift sanctions.
The ZANU-PF resolution declared that there should be "no movement on the concerns of the MDC formations (in the government) without corresponding and simultaneous redress of Zanu-PF's concerns such as the illegal Western sanctions and Western-funded radio broadcasts."
Political analyst Sydney Masamvu of the Iinternational Crisis Group in Pretoria told VOA's Blessing Zulu that Mr. Zuma must be firm with Mr. Mugabe because ZANU-PF hardliners would like to see the unity government collapse.
