Zimbabwe's political factions were back in talks, both sides said on Sunday, but so far can't even agree on how far they've progressed, a measure of the difficulty of turning their pledges of co-operation into action.

President Robert Mugabe and his main rivals signed a power-sharing agreement last month brokered by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. Since then, though, they have made no progress on deciding who would hold which posts in their Cabinet.

That has meant they have yet to turn their attention to their nation's economic and humanitarian crisis.

Mbeki has agreed to resume mediating. But the two sides met without him on Saturday.

Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson for main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said Sunday that negotiators were going back to the table to find what he called "a domestic remedy" before deciding whether it was necessary to call back mediators.

George Charamba, Mugabe's spokesperson, said talks on Saturday between Mugabe, Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a smaller opposition group, failed to allocate control of just the home affairs ministry, in charge of police, and the finance ministry, the official Sunday Mail newspaper reported.

Charamba said the leaders met for two hours at Mugabe's State House offices in Harare and decided to hand back discussion on the two ministries to negotiators for the parties who drew up the power-sharing deal signed 15 September.

Zanu-PF wants maximum gains

But Chamisa, Tsvangirai's spokesperson, said on Sunday that disputes remained over the allocation of "the whole set" of 31 government ministries laid out in the deal, 16 going to the combined opposition and 15 to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

"Zanu-PF is trying to extract maximum gains for themselves. To say that two ministries are holding things up is absolutely incorrect. It is totally fictional," he said.

Under the power-sharing agreement, Mugabe remains president and head of the Cabinet and Tsvangirai heads a council of ministers responsible for implementing government policy.

Talks on the sharing of ministries have already stalled twice over which party receives control of key ministries such as defense, justice, finance, foreign affairs, home affairs, information and local government.

The opposition accuses the home affairs ministry of condoning political violence by police and state agents against Movement for Democratic Change supporters.

Several top Mugabe loyalists would lose powerful government jobs and diplomatic posts if the unity government agreement comes into affect.

Sapa