Tutu says don't give up hope of peaceful Kenya solution

By Marius Bosch

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The world should not give up hope of a peaceful solution to Kenya's crisis as the country's president and rival opposition leader are open to negotiations, Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu said on Wednesday.

"I don't think we should be too despondent," said Tutu, a former Archbishop of South Africa who shuttled between the rival camps of President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga on a mediation mission last week.

"The situation is like a kind of a rollercoaster. Sometimes you get to be on a high because it looks as if things are promising and then you plumb the depths because something has happened or somebody said something," he said.

Tutu said in his meetings with Kibabi and Odinga, both men had shown themselves to be open to talks.

"My impression was that they were genuinely open to the possibilities. When I met with the president, he wasn't too keen to speak about a government of national unity but didn't mind speaking about a coalition," Tutu said in a telephone interview from Cape Town.

Post-election turmoil in Kenya has killed about 500 people and left about a quarter of a million people displaced in the east African nation seen only months ago as a bright hope for democracy.

The two rival Kenyan leaders have not met face-to-face since trouble started when Kibaki was sworn in on December 30, despite huge international pressure.

On Wednesday, African Union chief John Kufuor met Kibaki and Odinga separately to try to defuse the crisis which has damaged Kenya's reputation for stability and hurt the key economic sectors of tea and tourism.