The Kenyan government has said it is ready to accept a re-run of a disputed election that unleashed a wave of violence if a court ordered it.
The UN said it was scrambling to get food to 100,000 people facing starvation in western Kenya after they fled the violence, which included the burning to death of 30 people in a church.
As international efforts to end the bloody crisis intensified, a senior US envoy arrived in Kenya and Washington joined a chorus of voices calling for dialogue between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said envoy Jendayi Frazer planned to meet both men.
Protesters, exhausted after hours of street battles with police yesterday, failed to carry out a planned protest march on central Nairobi again today.
Spokesman Alfred Mutua said Mr Kibaki was ready to re-run the disputed 27 December election for control of East Africa's biggest economy if this was ordered by a court.
'We would accept even another election as long as the constitution is followed. If the courts decide it, we would accept that,' he said.
Mr Odinga's opposition Orange Democratic Party charges that Mr Kibaki stole the vote and says the courts are packed with Mr Kibaki allies and legal appeals could take years.
At least 300 people have died in the wave of bloodshed that followed Mr Kibaki's disputed victory.
South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, trying to mediate an end to the turmoil, said Mr Kibaki was ready for a coalition government if the opposition accepted his terms.
'There is a great deal of hope,' Archbishop Tutu said.
Although Nairobi returned to some appearance of normality, with more traffic on the streets, police fired teargas in the port of Mombasa to disperse about 500 Muslim anti-government demonstrators after Friday prayers.
France backed the opposition charges of fraud in the strongest foreign criticism yet of the vote.
'Were the elections rigged or not? I think so, many think so, the Americans think so, the British think so, and they know the country well,' Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
The Irish Red Cross Operations Co-ordinator - who has arrived in Kenya - says that there are almost 500,000 people in need of immediate humanitarian aid and food.
John Roche has called on the Irish people to donate funds to the special Irish Red Cross appeal.
