Annan suspends Kenya crisis talks

Talks aimed ending violence in Kenya broke down today after the bitter rivals in the dispute about who won last December's presidential election failed to agree a power sharing deal, chief mediator Kofi Annan said.

The former UN secretary general, who has been leading the negotiations, announced that the talks had been suspended. The move will prompt fears of renewed violence.

Annan said he will speak to the leaders personally and try to reinvigorate talks that have dragged on for weeks with no success.

"I hope people will understand this is a move intended to speed up action," Annan said.

The US voiced its impatience at the failure of Kenya's rival politicians to reach a deal.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, issued a statement saying the delays were inexcusable and warned that the US relationship with any future Kenyan leadership was at stake.

"I want to emphasise that the future of our relationship with both sides and their legitimacy hinges on their cooperation to achieve this political solution," Rice said.

Negotiations ground to a standstill yesterday as both sides said that President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga needed to step in to break the deadlock.

The opposition has said it will stage nationwide protests on Thursday if there is no deal and there are fears of a return to the violence that erupted after December's disputed elections.

Odinga has accused Kibaki of stealing the election, while the president blames Odinga for instigating the ethnic violence that has left over 1,000 people dead and forced 300,000 people to flee their homes.

Negotiators for Kibaki and Odinga had agreed in principle to create a new prime minister's post for the opposition, but they failed to agree over just how much power such a post would carry.

According to Kenyan media reports, the government went back on previous pledges to give real power to the opposition.