Zimbabwe pledged today to move swiftly to remove blacks illegally occupying white-owned farms but said land seizures could only end if Britain honoured its agreement to fund a land resettlement scheme.
Foreign Minister Mr Stan Mudenge also told reporters a Nigerian and Commonwealth brokered accord struck in Abuja yesterday had paved the way for normalisation of ties with former colonial ruler Britain, strained by the land crisis.
"The agreement we reached yesterday is a compromise," Mr Mudenge said.
"It is a commitment by Zimbabwe (to end land occupations) and a commitment by Britain and the international community to come to the aid of Zimbabwe in land resettlement," he said.
Zimbabwe's delegation led by Mr Mudenge pledged in the accord to halt illegal occupation of white-owned farms by landless blacks calling themselves veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s nationalist war.
But Mr Mudenge said the agreement concerned only land the government had not designated for acquisition under its policy of resettling the black majority which is largely landless.
"So a process will begin in an energised way so that those on land government does not intend to acquire will be moved," Mr Mudenge said.
Agriculture Minister Mr Joseph Made has said the government intends to re-settle blacks on 8.3 million hectares of the 12 million held by white farmers.
Some 3,500 farms have already been fully or partly occupied by militants.
It was not immediately clear whether the agreement meant that some of the black occupiers would be ejected on government orders.
