20100628
allafrica

Harare — Zimbabwe and the European Union will this week begin talks aimed at normalising their strained relations a month after Harare blasted the block for stalling the dialogue.

The EU invited the Zimbabwean ministerial team for the talks in Brussels on July 2.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Mr Joey Bimha told the state media that the agenda for the talks was not yet available but the Zimbabwean team would meet soon to agree on positions.

The talks should have resumed in April but were postponed indefinitely after flights were suspended in Europe following the eruption of a volcano in Iceland that spread a cloud of ash across the continent.

Zimbabwe wants the EU to lift sanctions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle but most Western countries say there is still no evidence that President Mugabe is committed to sharing power with his former rivals.

Mr Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, the Foreign Affairs minister a fortnight ago said the EU was not interested in dialogue as it wanted to maintain the sanctions.

"We are still waiting for the EU to indicate to us when our delegation should go there and they certainly seem to be taking their time," he told journalists then.

Meanwhile, Rwandan refugees in Zimbabwe are resisting efforts to repatriate them claiming their homeland is still not safe.Last week Zimbabwe had announced that it plans to send them back the remaining 750 refugees who escaped the genocide over a decade ago by the end of next year.

The refugees accuse the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) of colluding with the Kigali government to forcibly repatriate them. "President Paul Kagame has been lobbying countries with Rwandan refugees to repatriate them but the country is not safe," Mr Leon Nsengimana, a representative of the refugees told NewsDay, a Zimbabwean daily paper.