NAIROBI - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki will meet his rival Raila Odinga on Thursday for the first time since a disputed election fuelled weeks of riots and ethnic violence, the United Nations said.
The meeting would be a major breakthrough in the bloody crisis. Despite strong international pressure and to the frustration of millions of Kenyans, the two leaders have failed to talk since the December 27 vote.
News of the meeting came after former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Kibaki at State House in the latest bid to end unrest that has killed nearly 700 people.
"At 4.30 p.m (1:30 p.m. British time) today there will be a meeting between Kofi Annan and President Kibaki and Honourable Odinga at (the) office of (the) president, Harambee House," a U.N. spokesman said in a statement to media.
Word of the meeting came as a human rights watchdog accused opposition party officials of organising tribal violence in the country's Rift Valley, echoing government allegations.
Odinga and other officials from his opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) met Annan late on Wednesday, and at his request agreed to call off protests planned for Thursday over a victory it says Kibaki stole.
The opposition demanded an outside mediator to solve a crisis that has split Kenya down tribal and political lines, after Kibaki narrowly won the closest election in the east African nation's history in a vote rife with rigging.
Hundreds have died and 250,000 been forced to flee their homes in a combination of ethnic killings fuelled by politics and police action - criticised as excessive - during earlier protests that degenerated into rioting and looting.
In Odinga's stronghold of Kisumu in western Kenya, several youths burned tyres, saying they were angry he had been caught in police teargas on Wednesday at a memorial service.
ETHNIC KILLINGS
