By Tim Cocks
NAIROBI, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is due to meet Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday to try to end a post-election crisis after persuading the opposition to call off further street protests.
Following talks with Annan, the opposition said late on Wednesday it would halt planned demonstrations against Kibaki's disputed Dec. 27 poll victory. Previous protests have ended in rioting and bloody clashes with security forces.
Annan had been due to meet Kibaki on Wednesday, but the Kenyan leader instead met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a close ally also trying to mediate who is one of few African leaders to have congratulated Kibaki on his win.
Officials said Annan would now meet Kibaki on Thursday.
"These things have a tendency to start slowly but now they should start going more quickly," said one diplomat involved in the negotiations, who declined to be named.
Annan held talks with Raila Odinga on Wednesday, the leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), who says Kibaki stole a vote he narrowly won at the end of last month.
The resulting dispute plunged Kenya into chaos and triggered ethnically-motivated killings, tarnishing the image of a country long seen as among Africa's most stable.
"We believe and hope that (Kofi Annan's mediation team) will have a chance to meet Mr. Kibaki, and ... we should be able to make progress," said one of the ODM's leaders, William Ruto.
More than 650 people have so far died in clashes which continued into Wednesday, when at least two people were killed in violence in a Nairobi slum.
Police dispersed stone-throwing opposition supporters at a funeral on Wednesday to commemorate those shot dead by police in efforts to crush previous demonstrations.
World powers have called on Kibaki and Odinga to hold urgent talks after more than three weeks of unrest and many ordinary Kenyans are disgusted that they have so far failed to do so.
Kenya's newly elected parliament speaker, Kenneth Marende, who also met Annan on Wednesday, said face-to-face discussion between the two rivals was "going to be on the table". (Editing by Nick Tattersall and Michael Winfrey)
A man flee with his belongings during ethnic clashes in Nairobi January 23, 2008. Police fired teargas to disperse stone-throwing youths outside an opposition funeral on Wednesday and former U.N. boss ...
