By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki saidon Wednesday that outside players like the European Union orthe African Union could not impose conditions for a solution tothe Zimbabwe crisis.
Mbeki, who has been mediating the Zimbabwe matter since2007, is pushing for talks that would pave the way for apower-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe's rulingZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.
The South African leader has resisted Western calls tocondemn Mugabe for holding a presidential election marred byviolence and boycotted by Tsvangirai.
African leaders at a summit in Egypt issued a resolutioncalling for Mugabe's government and the MDC to negotiate aunity government, with Mbeki continuing in his role asmediator.
"The AU and SADC (Southern African Development Community)cannot dictate the outcome of negotiations between Zimbabwe andpolitical parties," Mbeki told the South African BroadcastingCorp.
He also bristled at an EU declaration, made at the end ofthe African summit, that it would only accept a government ledby Tsvangirai.
Neither side in the Zimbabwe crisis appeared ready tofollow the line suggested by the AU.
Mugabe's spokesman rejected a Kenya-style power-sharinggovernment and the MDC ruled out negotiations.
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said on Tuesday thatMugabe's decision to go ahead with the June 27 election"totally and completely exterminated any prospects of anegotiated settlement".
AU SPLIT ON MUGABE
Mugabe, 84, was sworn in for a new five-year term on Sundayafter election authorities announced he had won about 85percent of the vote in the run-off, which was condemned bymonitors and much of world opinion as violent and unfair.
Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the presidential vote onMarch 29 but failed to win an absolute majority.
The MDC leader reluctantly agreed to participate in therun-off but pulled out less than a week before because ofviolence in which he said nearly 90 of his followers werekilled. He was arrested five times during the campaign.
There are fears Zimbabwe may be engulfed by furtherviolence if the MDC and trade unions take to the streets toprotest Mugabe's election rather than negotiate with theZimbabwean leader, who has ruled since independence fromBritain in 1980.
Although there is support for a power-sharing deal modelledon the one that ended post-election violence in Kenya earlierthis year, the AU is split on how to deal with Mugabe, stillseen by many in Africa as a hero of the anti-colonial struggle.
In the strongest public statement from one of Zimbabwe'sneighbours since Mugabe's victory, Botswana called for Mugabeto be barred from the AU and SADC. Kenyan Prime Minister RailaOdinga also has called for Mugabe to be suspended from the AU.
The summit did not back a U.S. push for U.N. sanctionsagainst Mugabe, including an arms embargo.
(Additional reporting by Cynthia Johnston and Daniel Wallisin Sharm el-Sheikh, Nelson Banya and MacDonald Dzirutwe inHarare, Paul Simao in Johannesburg; Writing by Paul Simao andBarry Moody; Editing by Richard Balmforth)