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Pres ident Thabo Mbeki opened two days of talks yesterday with Burundi's president and leaders of all major political parties to try to clear an impasse to the peace process in the central African country.

Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye arrived at the presidential guest house two hours after the appointed starting time for the talks.

Ndayizeye gave the thumbs-up sign but had no comment for waiting reporters, other than "we're doing fine."

The other participants - Pierre Nkurunziza of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), Jean Minani of the mainly-Hutu Frodebu party and Jean-Baptiste Manwangari of Tutsi-dominated Uprona party arrived an hour before Ndayizeye and remained waiting in separate rooms.

Burundi is emerging from more than a decade of war fuelled by ethnic rivalries that have claimed more than 300 000 lives and devastated the country's economy and infrastructure.

Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma, South Africa's mediator for Burundi, are pressing Ndayizeye to stick to a deadline set in the 2000 Arusha peace accord for elections to be held by the end of October.

Ndayizeye, who held out against this during four days of negotiations here last month, insists there is not enough time before the end of October to meet all the pre-election requirements.

"President Mbeki and Deputy President Zuma are now meeting separately with the parties," said a South African official who asked not to be named.

"The intention is to hold a plenary meeting at some stage, but there is no indication when this will be," said the official.

South Africa hopes that a power-sharing agreement between the Tutsi minority and Hutu majority can be reached to break the deadlock over setting a date for elections.

Under the 2000 peace accord, the interim government was led for 18 months by Tutsi Pierre Buyoya, and seconded by Ndayizeye, a Hutu, who took over for the second half of the transition period in May last year.

Separately, the head of the UN mission in Burundi was discussing terms for a ceasefire with representatives of the country's last active rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. – Sapa-AFP.

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