HARARE, Jan 18: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe threatened in state media on Sunday to break off power-sharing talks if opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai declines a deal in their next meeting.

The bitter rivals are set to meet on Monday for talks mediated by South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who hopes to salvage a unity accord that stalled almost as soon as it was signed in September.

The stalemate has only worsened the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans, with half the population dependent on food aid, astronomical levels of hyperinflation, and a cholera epidemic sweeping unchecked across the country.

“This is the occasion when it's either they accept or it's a break,” Mugabe said in the government mouthpiece Sunday Mail newspaper.

“We have gone past negotiations and whatever concessions were there to be made have already been made,” he said.

The agreement calls for 84-year-old Mugabe to remain president while Tsvangirai would take the new post of prime minister. But they have yet to agree on how to share power within cabinet despite repeated interventions by African leaders.

Since leaders of the 15-nation South African Development Community (SADC) failed at a November summit to break the impasse, Tsvangirai has spent more than two months outside the country trying to lobby international support.

He returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday, saying he was optimistic about the new meeting, but insisting that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would not be “bulldozed” into a deal.

The SADC leaders in November had told Tsvangirai to join the unity government with Mugabe, and to settle any outstanding issues once the cabinet is formed.

Mugabe insisted that Tsvangirai follow the SADC ruling, and claimed he had already done his part to pave the way for a new government.

“If they have any issues they deem outstanding, they can raise them after they come into the inclusive government,” he said in the Sunday Mail.

“This is a meeting which is taking place against a decision of SADC which we already have,” Mugabe said.

“We have signed an agreement which we have already gazetted as required by SADC. We have done all that SADC expected us to do and all that remains is fulfilling the agreement by forming an inclusive government,” he said.—AFP