NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's foreign minister urged outsiders on Sunday not to make the mistake of using threats to force a deal to end a post-election crisis, saying the solution lies with Kenyans.
"We encourage our friends to support us and not to make anymistake of putting a gun to anybody's head and saying 'either''or' because that cannot work," Moses Wetangula told reporters.
"Even if we get visitors to help us in any way possible,the answer to the problem in Kenya lies with Kenyansthemselves," he said a day before U.S. Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice was due in Nairobi to support negotiations ledby former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.
Rice is being sent U.S. President George W. Bush who saidon Sunday he did not want to dictate how to bring an end toKenya's political violence, but to help push along Annan'smediation.
President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election triggered awave of ethnically-tinged violence that has killed 1,000 peopleand left 300,000 homeless.
The crisis affecting a key ally in the West's fight tocounter al Qaeda has dented Kenya's democratic credentials,driven tourists away and disrupted vital supplies of food andfuel to regional countries.
Bush, who started a five-nation tour of Africa on Saturday,has thrown his weight behind a power-sharing deal to end thepolitical standoff in Kenya.
Rice is expected to meet Kibaki, his opposition rival RailaOdinga, and Annan.
(Reporting by Joseph Sudah; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
