PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has urged western countries to remove “all sanctions” on Zimbabwe, in the same week that the United States extended sanctions by another year.

Tsvangirai is growingly frustrated by western countries’ publicly-expressed doubts over the power sharing government he formed with President Robert Mugabe in February last year.

After meeting Soren Pind, Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, on Monday, Tsvangirai said countries wishing to help Zimbabwe should do so through the unity government.

“If you want to support the people of Zimbabwe you have to support the coalition government,” Tsvangirai said in comments carried by state television.

“It can’t be done through political parties. President Mugabe is President of Zimbabwe and you cannot separate President Mugabe from the whole process.”

Turning to the sanctions, which he has previously only described as “restrictive measures”, Tsvangirai said: “Well, the issue of sanctions debate is a very contentious one in Zimbabwe. We want all sanctions removed.”

The Prime Minister’s comments will bolster South African President Jacob Zuma who arrived on a state visit to the UK on Tuesday, telling reporters that if western countries could lift sanctions “that would give Zimbabwe an opportunity to move forward”.

Zuma, chairman of the Southern African Development Community which brokered the power sharing deal, is expected to tell Prime Minister Gordon Brown later this week that it would be difficult for Zimbabwe to deal with outstanding obstacles to a political resolution while sanctions were still in place.

President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party, the target of most of the sanctions, says it will not give any new concessions in the power sharing arrangement until the sanctions are lifted. The party has implored the MDC to lobby for the sanctions to be lifted.

The European Union, which imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on President Robert Mugabe and about 196 other individuals, extended its sanctions by another year last month saying it wanted to see more political reforms in Zimbabwe.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced US sanctions on the Zimbabwe government would roll over by a year. Obama said “the crisis constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions has not been resolved”.

The European Union and the United States say the sanctions are a response to human rights abuses, but Mugabe says they were instigated by Britain which opposed his government’s policy of seizing land from white farmers to resettle landless blacks.