South African President Thabo Mbeki, chief regional negotiator on the Zimbabwe crisis, met here Saturday with President Robert Mugabe and leaders of a breakaway faction of the main opposition party.

Mbeki had a brief discussion with Mugabe, whose re-election last month has been rejected by the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), an AFP correspondent saw.

The South African leader and Mugabe were then joined by Arthur Mutambara, head of the dissident MDC faction, its secretary-general Welshman Ncube and the latter's deputy Priscilla Misihairibwi-Mushonga.

The talks came as Zimbabwe's political deadlock looked set to continue after the two main actors assumed hardline positions and laid tough pre-conditions for talks towards a negotiated settlement.

Analysts said deep-seated mistrust between Mugabe and Tsvangirai was a major obstacle to efforts for a quick solution to the crisis.

Tsvangirai withdrew from the June 27 run-off presidential election over claims of pre-election violence and intimidation by Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party.

Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, found himself criticised by other African leaders as well as Western governments for continuing with the poll.

Mugabe said Friday he would sit down with the opposition but only if Tsvangirai recognised him as president, a stance immediately rejected by the latter.

Mutambara's faction could be more conciliatory, however.

A former spokesman for Mutambara, Gabriel Chaibva, attended Mugabe's swearing-in ceremony for his sixth presidential term and urged his colleagues to recognise the 84-year-old as head of state.

Mutambara had commanded the loyalty of nearly half the parliamentary party until general elections on March 29, which saw the MDC take control of the 210-member assembly from ZANU-PF.

However Mutambara's faction only won 10 seats and pledged to work with Tsvangirai, whose camp took 99, though no formal pact has been concluded.

Mutambara, 42, who has a degree in robotics and was a researcher for the US space agency NASA, split with Tsvangirai in 2005 in a dispute over whether to boycott senatorial elections.

A former student leader, he was one of the first two Zimbabweans to be awarded a prestigious Rhodes scholarship in 1990 to study at Oxford University, and spent 15 years abroad, mainly in the United States and South Africa.

He returned to Zimbabwe in February 2006 and was chosen the unopposed leader of the so-called pro-Senate wing of the MDC.

Mutambara was arrested on June 1 for making a written attack on Mugabe, accusing him of running down the Zimbabwean economy and his security forces of abuses, but was freed on bail two days later.

Zimbabwe is in the throes of economic woes characterised by triple-digit inflation, high unemployment and chronic shortages of foreign currency, food and fuel.