After earlier insisting there was no need for South Africa's former leader Thabo Mbeki to resume a troubled mediation mission in Zimbabwe, Mugabe's camp said it now accepted a third party was needed to end the impasse.

Following talks between the opposition and Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF's chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa confirmed Mbeki would now be asked for his help.

"The meeting was held. The outcome was that all the principals have asked the facilitator to come and assist in overcoming the impasse," he told AFP.

The agreement by ZANU-PF to call in Mbeki came as something of a surprise after Chinamasa had earlier told a state-run newspaper that there was no need for outside involvement.

"We should learn to overcome our challenges and as negotiating parties we feel that we should not find easy ways to avoid taking hard decisions," he was quoted as saying, adding that was no need to continue "abusing" Mbeki's office.

Since a power-sharing accord was signed on September 15 in the capital Harare, ZANU-PF and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change have met several times in a failed bid to agree on a share of ministries.

The MDC has argued it should take the lion's share of power as it won most votes in a first round of elections in March. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the second round after mounting violence against his supporters.

However the party has accused ZANU-PF of trying to cling onto all the major cabinet portfolios including defence, home affairs and finance.

Mbeki, who was toppled as South African president last month, has been widely accused in the past of being too soft on Mugabe who has led the former British colony uninterrupted since independence in 1980.

However the MDC, which at one stage called for him to replaced, now sees him as a key to persuading Mugabe and his cohorts to release their grip on power.

Tsvangirai's MDC said in a statement Friday that ZANU-PF was trying to make it a "bystander" in the new cabinet.

"Sadly, ZANU-PF ... continues to frustrate that (September 15) agreement by refusing to consummate the same and more importantly by making demands that will reduce the MDC to an innocent and disinterested bystander in that cabinet," said MDC secretary general Tendai Biti.

Despite his unceremonious ousting as president, Mbeki has agreed to continue with his mediation -- a task handed to him by his regional peers last year.

His spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga told AFP Friday that Mbeki "has accepted that he is going to continue with the mediation efforts," either in South Africa, in Harare or by telephone.

Once hailed as a model economy and a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe's fortunes have nosedived since 2000 when Mugabe seized white-owned farms and handed them over to landless blacks, often with no farming skills.

But the government blames the country's economic woes on sanctions imposed by Britain and its allies after he allegedly rigged his 2002 re-election.

The southern African nation is suffering from foreign exchange fuel and food shortages.

Zimbabwe's inflation rate soared to 231 million percent in July, the world's highest.

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