The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, United Nations

Zimbabwe's president is only four Cabinet posts away from carrying out a power-sharing agreement with the opposition, he said in an interview ahead of his Thursday address to the U.N. General Assembly.

Robert Mugabe dismissed reports that the Sept. 15 power-sharing deal could fall apart "because I don't know of any hitch." He said he hopes the agreement will lead the West to ease sanctions he blamed for devastating the country's economy.

Under the power-sharing deal, the 84-year-old Mugabe remains president but is supposed to cede some of the powers he has wielded for nearly three decades in the southern African country.

Long-simmering and bitter differences as well as the nation's economic collapse, though, have put the deal under intense pressure.

Mugabe said Wednesday that the only outstanding issue is deciding on four of the 31 Cabinet posts, and those negotiations are continuing in Harare while he is in New York.

He declined to say which posts are still being discussed. The agreement provides for 15 nominees from Mugabe's party, 13 from opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and three from the leader of a smaller opposition faction, Arthur Mutambara.

"Every one of us is actually positive about the agreement, or the need to cement the agreement and make it work," Mugabe said.

"I don't see any reason why we can't work together as Zimbabweans," he said. "We are all sons of the soil, as we say, and the differences arise purely from own conceptions of what Zimbabwe should be and what the government of Zimbabwe should be."