Mbeki confers with Mugabe

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) - South African President Thabo Mbeki met Saturday with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and members of a breakaway opposition faction, the South African Foreign Affairs Department told CNN.

Mbeki - appointed by the Southern African Development Community last year to mediate between Mugabe and the opposition - met in Harare with the Zimbabwean president and members of a breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change.

The party split in 2005. The other MDC, that of former presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, said it turned down an invitation to attend the meeting.