HARARE - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his rivals have agreed to fresh mediation by former South African president Thabo Mbeki to end a deadlock over a new unity government, the ruling party's chief negotiator said Friday.

"The meeting was held. The outcome was that all the principals have asked the facilitator to come and assist in overcoming the impasse," on the sharing of cabinet posts, Patrick Chinamasa told AFP.

Earlier Friday, state-run Herald newspaper quoted Chinamasa as saying that the political leaders did not need to invite Mbeki -- who had brokered a power-sharing accord -- to mediate again over the composition of the new government.

"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," Chinamasa was quoted as saying.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC ) has consistently called for the mediation of the southern African regional bloc, SADC, which mandated Mbeki, to resolve the political deadlock.

The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on Thursday denounced the logjam in talks with the ruling party on the composition of a new government.

Since the power-sharing accord was signed on September 15 in Harare, the ruling ZANU-PF and the MDC have met several times without resolving the key issue of the allocation of ministries.

Mbeki's spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga, told AFP earlier Friday that "he (Mbeki) has accepted that he is going to continue with the mediation efforts," either in South Africa, in Harare or over the telephone.

Ratshitanga, however, did not say when Mbeki's fresh intervention would begin.

Mbeki painstakingly got the power-sharing accord signed last month between Mugabe, Tsvangirai and the head of a smaller MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara to end the country's ruinous and dragging political crisis and economic meltdown.

- AFP /ls