Annan in Kenyan election mediation talks

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan opened mediation talks in Nairobi Wednesday over last month's disputed Kenyan election results.

Going into the talks, it wasn't immediately clear if President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga would meet face to face, or whether Annan would choose to act as a go-between, Voice of America reported.

Odinga told supporters Monday he was prepared to talk directly to Kibaki, but only in the presence of an international mediator.

Before talks began, Kenya's The Nation newspaper reported a flare-up of violence in the Nandi district killed six people as 70 houses were torched. No further details were immediately available.

In the political dispute, Odinga claims vote-rigging in the Dec. 27 elections allowed Kibaki to return to power, and as many as 700 people were killed in post-election rioting and violence.

A spokesman for his Orange Democratic Movement party, Peter Anyang Nyong'o, told VOA the party was holding a mass prayer service in Nairobi Wednesday for those he said were killed by federal police in the protests.