Burundi: Proposal to extend transitional period rejected, official says

A spokesman of President Domitien Ndayizeye said on Monday that the South African team in charge of Burundi's peace process had rejected a government proposal to extend the transitional period by one year. The spokesman, Pancrace Cimpaye, told IRIN in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, that the mediation team had maintained that the transitional period should end on 1 November as stipulated in the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Accord, signed in August 2000, under which the three-year transitional period in Burundi was established.