Zimbabwe could be added to UN Security Council's Africa summit

Apr 15, 2008, 18:35 GMT

New York - Zimbabwe's unresolved presidential election outcome is not on the agenda of the UN Security Council's African summit on Wednesday, but could be placed there if the world's powers want to debate the issue, the council president said Tuesday.

The African summit at UN headquarters in New York is to be presided over by South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose mediation in settling the dispute in Zimbabwe's presidential vote count has been criticized for being biased in favour of President Robert Mugabe.

Mbeki's Ambassador to the UN Dumisani Kumalo said Zimbabwe was not on the council's agenda. But he said the United States, Britain and France, three of the five veto-wielding permanent members, could raise the issue during the two-day African debate.

'Those are huge countries,' Kumalo said. 'They can raise whatever they want to raise and all I have said was that we don't expect Zimbabwe to be discussed tomorrow (Wednesday). But they can raise anything.'

Zimbabwe's electoral commission has refused to make public results of the first round of presidential elections held last month and has called for a run-off vote. The opposition said it has won the elections.

Mbeki and the presidents of Ivory Coast, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a number of deputy ministers and ambassadors will attend the council's African meeting to discuss ways to strengthen the working relationship between the UN and the African Union.