Mugabe urges opposition to accept power-sharing deal

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has said the country's opposition MDC should accept a power-sharing deal signed last September or end talks over the implementation of the agreement, state media reported on Sunday.

"This is the occasion when it's either they accept or it's a break. After all this is an interim agreement. If they have any issues they deem outstanding, they can raise them after they come into the inclusive government," Mugabe was quoted as saying in the weekly Sunday Mail.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change are set to hold meetings with the presidents of regional powers South Africa and Mozambique and with mediator Thabo Mbeki on Monday, in a new regional push to break a deadlock in power-sharing talks.

Those talks will be followed by meetings between Zimbabwean negotiators on issues holding back the agreement on forming a unity government, South Africa's presidency said last week.

The power-sharing agreement is still seen as the best chance of preventing total economic collapse and the worsening of a growing humanitarian crisis in once prosperous Zimbabwe.

The country now suffers hyper-inflation and food shortages while a cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,000 people.

More than half Zimbabwe's population is surviving on food handouts, and a lack of funds -- combined with projections of more food shortages this year -- could make the crisis worse, aid agency Oxfam said last week.

"PAST NEGOTIATIONS"

The 84-year-old Mugabe said his party had made all the concessions it was willing to make in the talks and was now ready to form the inclusive government as required by the September agreement.

"We have gone past negotiations and whatever concessions were there to be made have already been made. We have done all that SADC (Southern African Development Community) expected us to do and all that remains is fulfilling the agreement by forming an inclusive government," the paper quoted him as saying.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai -- who returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday after more than two months outside the country -- told reporters on his arrival in Harare his party "will not be bulldozed into an agreement that does not reflect the will of the people."

At a news conference in South Africa last Thursday, Tsvangirai demanded the unconditional release of detained party activists before the power-sharing deal with Mugabe could be implemented.

He said he was committed to the September agreement but said he lacked a credible partner, accusing Mugabe's government of breaching the pact by abducting and detaining opposition activists.

The top leadership of the main MDC formation led by Tsvangirai was holding a meeting on Sunday to assess the state of the power-sharing negotiations and formulate a position ahead of Monday's meetings. The meeting was also expected to evaluate the humanitarian situation in the country.

(Reporting by Nelson Banya)