Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF warns Tsvangirai ahead of talks

Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF chief negotiator in the power-sharing talks issued a stark warning to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai ahead of key talks Monday on a unity government.

"If Tsvangirai does not stop campaigning for sanctions against Zimbabwe to further cripple the country's economy, then we are headed for trouble," Patrick Chinamasa told AFP.

And he warned Tsvangirai against a boycott of the talks, after he failed to attend last Monday's meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Swaziland.

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"We trust that Tsvangirai will not treat Monday's troika meeting with the same contempt and utter disrespect that he did with the Swaziland meeting,"

Another boycott by him will irreversibly strain ZANU-PF's patience and will be the last straw that broke the camel's back," said Chinamasa.

Tsvangirai stayed away from the SADC meeting in protest at the government's failure to issue him a passport. This obliges him to seek emergency travel documents, valid for a single trip, each time he leaves the country.

The southern African leaders agreed to hold new talks between the rivals in Harare this Monday in the hope of salvaging an agreement on power-sharing between ZANU-PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Despite his warning Chinamasa added: "With respect to prospects of Monday's meeting we are cautiously optimistic that the meeting will yield a positive outcome."

Monday's talks are aimed at breaking the stalemate over the allocation of key cabinet ministers between the two parties in a unity government, which in principle had been agreed in a power-sharing deal on September 15.

The deal, brokered by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, was hailed as a breakthrough in ending months of political deadlock and long-term economic melt-down in the former regional breadbasket.