South African President Thabo Mbeki's trip to Cairo for the funeral of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Friday will not scupper his scheduled talks with the Ivory Coast political leaders, his spokesman said Thursday.  

Presidential spokesman Bheki Khumalo said Mbeki would meet opposition groups of Ivory Coast in Pretoria on Thursday afternoon before departing for Cairo. He would resume discussions with the visiting politicians at the weekend.

Khumalo described Mbeki's trip to Egypt as "an in-and-out visit."

"The African National Congress and the Palestinian Liberation Army have come a long way together. The president and Yasser Arafat were also very close and his death has touched the president personally," Khumalo said.

Arafat died on Thursday morning at the age of 75 in a French military hospital outside Paris, where he had been comatose for over a week.

The talks with political parties from Ivory Coast are the second stage in Mbeki's attempt this week to broker peace in the conflict-ridden country.

Requested to intervene by the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, Mbeki led a one-day mission to Abidjan on Tuesday, accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad and Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, where they met Ivory Coast's President Laurent Gbagbo.

Fighting between the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south in the West African country flared up again last week, shattering an 18-month-old ceasefire and killing at least 64 people and wounding over one thousand people.

Mbeki is reportedly also scheduled to meet the head of the European Union, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, next week to discuss the recent crisis in Ivory Coast.

(Xinhua News Agency November 12, 2004)