Defence and security ministers of the Southern African Development Community met Wednesday in Maputo to prepare for a weekend SADC summit on the crises in Zimbabwe and Democratic Republic of Congo, a SADC spokeswoman said.

`The troika meeting of the defence and security of the Southern African Development Community ... is being attended by the ministers from Swaziland, Angola and Mozambique,` spokeswoman Leefa Martin told AFP.

It will make recommendations and prepare the agenda for the SADC summit that South Africa will host on Sunday.

An October 27 gathering of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security in Harare decided on an enlarged summit to address the deadlock over forming a national unity government in Zimbabwe.

It also decided that `an extraordinary summit should be held to specifically deal with the current developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the political situation in Zimbabwe`.