Representatives of Burundi's last active rebel group arrived in Pretoria yesterday for talks with South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, two days before a regional summit on the central African country's peace process, officials said.

The six-member delegation from the National Liberation Front (FNL), which is still fighting outside the capital Bujumbura, is led by Ibrahim Nyongabo.

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and leaders of former rebel groups failed during four days of talks in Pretoria this week to agree on an election date and a progress report to be presented to a regional summit in Dar es Salaam on Saturday.

The government wants to postpone elections due in October by a year but the former rebel groups and political parties have balked at the proposal.

Leaders in Dar es Salaam are this weekend to take stock of progress since a peace accord signed in Arusha in August 2000 which saw the establishment of a three-year transitional government the following year.

Its creation was to pave the way for elections in Burundi, where some 300 000 people have died since 1993, when war broke out, pitting rebels from the Hutu majority against the army and government, run then by Tutsis.

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

Six of the seven rebel groups have signed onto the peace process brokered by South Africa and fighting has cased in 16 of the 17 provinces in the country. - Sapa-AFP