Efforts to end the tribal violence that has wracked Kenya since December’s disputed elections suffered a further setback today when crisis talks were postponed following the killing of an Opposition MP by a police officer in the Rift Valley.

The shooting of David Too - the second Opposition MP to die this week – led Kofi Annan to suspend today’s negotiations to allow both parties to attend to the fallout and calm their constituents. The talks, which have already suffered numerous delays, would begin afresh tomorrow, the former UN Secretary General announced.

Despite police insistence that the killing was a crime of passion, the killing triggered a fresh surge in the post-election bloodshed that has pitted tribe against tribe, leaving up to 1,000 people dead and 300,000 homeless.

Local police maintain that the officer involved shot Mr Too out of jealousy upon seeing him with his own girlfriend, herself a policewoman, who was also shot and killed. However this did not prevent details of the tribal affiliations of those involved spreading rapidly through the Rift Valley region.

Neighbours said the killer belonged to the Kisii tribe, accused by Mr Too’s Kalenjins of backing President Mwai Kibaki, who they claim stole the election. Soon, violent demonstrations had erupted once again, with police firing teargas at protesters blocking roads and lighting fires in the towns of Eldoret, Kericho and Kisumu.

Two demonstrators died in the violence, a local police commander later reported.

Representatives of President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, the Opposition leader who claims last month’s poll was rigged, were meeting for the first time in Nairobi with Mr Annan acting as mediator.

Mr Odinga has refused to recognise the legitimacy of Mr Kibaki’s presidency and has demanded a fresh election, but the government has instead insisted on dialogue.

The two leaders were not themselves present at today's talks. Mr Kibaki has flow to Ethiopia to attend an African Union conference in Addis Ababa so far dominated by talk of the Kenyan crisis.

After a private meeting with President Mwai Kibaki, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he would travel to Kenya tomorrow to meet opposition leader Mr Odinga, urging a swift resolution to the crisis which, he warned, was close to reaching catastrophic levels.

Protests at the election result rapidly descended into violence amid longstanding tribal and economic tensions, with opposition supporters claiming they had been robbed of the opportunity for majimbo, a form of devolution aimed at redressing ethnic inequalities pledged by Mr Odinga. Members of the president’s Kikuyu tribe, which dominates the upper echelons of Kenyan business and politics, suffered heavily in the first wave of violence at the hands of Mr Odinga’s Luo tribe and other ethnic groups, but have since carried out numerous revenge attacks.

Earlier today, an uneasy calm appeared to have settled on many flashpoints of the recent violence, as residents waited for the outcome of the latest mediation effort.

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