By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala
Dar Es Salaam - A summit of African leaders trying to rescue Burundi's peace process ended on Tuesday without agreement on a power-sharing solution to a decade of civil war, Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa said.
An estimated 300 000 people have been killed in 10 years of conflict between the Tutsi-led army and Hutu rebels fighting to end the traditional political dominance of the Tutsi minority.
"We've held discussions and identified roadblocks on the implementation road," Mkapa told a news conference after the summit held more than 12 hours of talks overnight with the leaders of Burundi's government and main rebel group.
"I am going to report to the chairman and try to find ways of removing obstacles," he added, referring to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chairs regional peace efforts in Burundi.
Mkapa tried to strike an upbeat note after he and the presidents of South Africa and Mozambique laboured around the clock in separate talks with Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and Pierre Nkurunziza, leader of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) rebel group, in Dar Es Salaam.
"I insist the talks have not collapsed. I have adjourned the meeting. I don't think the hurdles are insurmountable," Mkapa said, indicating the summit would reconvene at a later date.
Museveni attended the opening of the summit on Monday but later left the talks saying Mkapa would steer the gathering, which tried to obtain agreement on which jobs the FDD would have in a future power-sharing government and shore up a widely-ignored truce signed last year.
The summit follows talks last week between Ndayizeye and Nkurunziza held in Uganda that faltered after the two sides disagreed over power sharing.
The peace process faces many other challenges, including the refusal by another rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), to hold talks with Ndayizeye's transitional government.
In a break in the talks on Monday evening, Nkurunziza told reporters the FDD had wanted the jobs of parliament speaker and the vice presidency but Ndayizeye had rejected this.
Nkurunziza said the FDD had been offered, and had rejected, the posts of second deputy speaker of parliament and minister of state in the president's office.
There was no immediate word on Tuesday from Ndayizeye, who was preparing to leave Tanzania, as was Mozambican President Joachim Chissano and President Thabo Mbeki.
Hussein Rajabu, the FDD secretary general, told reporters: "It is the government which blocked the talks. The heads of state have acted and they had seen where there is blockage and we hope that at the next talks they will take into account the different positions and find and agreement."
He said that despite the lack of an agreement the FDD would continue with what he called its policy of not initiating hostilities during periods of negotiation.
Chissano, the current chairperson of the African Union (AU), is expected later in the day in Addis Ababa for the inauguration of former Malian President Alpha Oumar Konare as the new head of the AU commission.