Kenya's feuding parties on Sunday headed into a decisive week of negotiations on a compromise deal to end a crisis over disputed elections that has left more than 1,000 dead.
Negotiators for President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga were to resume talks on Monday in a Nairobi hotel to hammer out details of an agreement that could include a power-sharing government.
Chief mediator Kofi Annan hopes a settlement can be reached in the coming days between the rival factions whose dispute over who won the presidential election on December 27 ignited Kenya's worst crisis since independence.
Widely considered one of Africa's most stable countries, Kenya descended into weeks of rioting, police raids and tribal violence that have claimed more than 1,000 lives and left 300,00 homeless.
"I think everyone realises that we have a serious problem in the country," Annan, a former UN secretary general, said last week, setting the stage for the crunch talks. "We are all agreed that a political settlement is needed, that a political settlement is necessary and we are working out the details of such a settlement."
Launched nearly two weeks ago, Annan's mediation is seen as Kenya's best hope for a political solution to end the violence in which Kenyans have been killed by machete-wielding mobs, burnt in churches and driven off their land.
The turmoil began when the central elections commission proclaimed 76-year-old Kibaki, in power since 2002, winner of the election. Odinga, 62, claimed he was cheated out of the presidency in a rigged vote while international observers found massive irregularities during the tallying of ballots from both sides.
The opposition leader reaffirmed on Sunday after attending church services that "we will support a political settlement" but added that "at the moment we don't have any proposals on the table."
Speculation about the political deal has centred on the formation of a national unity government in which leading opposition figures could take ministerial posts. Kenyan press reports have also said talks had zeroed in on a package of reforms to election laws, the court system and the constitution that would be enacted within a set timetable.
Annan has asked parliament to convene on Tuesday to be briefed on details of a possible deal. In negotiations last week, the rival parties agreed to set up a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission to try to heal the wounds from the turmoil, as South Africa did after apartheid.
Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyu, suffered heavily in the first wave of violence at the hands of Odinga's Luo tribe and other ethnic groups, but there have since been numerous revenge attacks. The violence has tapped into simmering resentment over land, poverty and the dominance of the Kikuyu in Kenyan politics and business since independence from Britain in 1963.
While Annan sought to push the sides into compromise, a string of foreign government officials arrived in Nairobi to express support for his effort and to warn of consequences if the talks failed.
The United States moved last week to slap visa restrictions on 13 Kenyan politicians and businessmen suspected of having a hand in the violence, while Canada and Britain were considering similar measures.
UN emergency relief co-ordinator John Holmes on Sunday toured camps for the displaced near Nairobi on the final day of his three-day fact-finding mission to assess Kenya's humanitarian crisis.
At the Kirathimo camp where hundreds of people from the Rift Valley have sought refuge, 21-year-old Rueben Kageche said a peace deal may be coming too late for him. "We have lost our homes. I think a peace deal will come but I don't know that it will mean that we will be able to return to our homes," said Kageche.