British minister hopeful of Kenya deal

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is cautiously hopeful Kenya's rival political parties can reach a power-sharing deal this week although there is still "a mountain to be climbed", Africa Minister Mark Malloch-Brown said on Monday.

Malloch-Brown said he had spoken on Sunday to former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is mediating in a crisis triggered by President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election.

The December 27 vote sparked turmoil which has killed more than 1,000 people and uprooted 300,000.

The British minister said Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga were moving closer. Negotiators for them held talks on Monday in a mood of optimism that a solution to Kenya's worst crisis since independence from Britain in 1963 may be near.

Malloch-Brown told Reuters in an interview the Monday meetings had been "critical".

"Can, beyond that, the leaders outside the (negotiating) room and all of their constituencies, which in both cases includes some pretty radical elements ... be brought into agreement?" he said.

Malloch-Brown said he was "cautiously hopeful" of an agreement this week. "I think there is still quite a mountain to be climbed to get both sides really to sign on to this."

He said he expected a proposed agreement to call for power-sharing until a new election. Reforms to the constitution and election commission would be made before the vote.

Malloch-Brown said the crisis could do lasting damage to Kenya's reputation unless the solution tackled underlying problems such as inequality and the concentration of power.

Events in neighboring Chad, where President Idriss Deby this month repelled a rebel offensive, had added "a new element of concern and instability" to the situation in Sudan's Darfur region, Malloch-Brown said.

Asked about the threat of a regional conflict involving Chad and Sudan, he said the situation was "getting very dangerous".

He said he would head to New York later this week to try to speed up the deployment of a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force to Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council approved the operation last July but only 9,000 of the 26,000 troops and police required have so far been deployed.

Malloch-Brown said the force would not be fully deployed until "well into the latter part of the year".

(Editing by Andrew Roche)