PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe says Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai did “a good thing” by calling on western countries to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe, but can do more.

Mugabe spoke on Thursday as former opposition rival Tsvangirai appeared to recant from his statement on Monday when he told a visiting Danish minister he wanted “all sanctions removed”.

Tsvangirai’s spokesman James Maridadi, in a statement, sought to clarify what the Prime Minister meant and appeared to take back Tsvangirai’s rare public reference to sanctions, instead calling them “restrictive measures”.

Maridadi said: “Prime Minister Tsvangirai's position on the issue of restrictive measures and Zimbabwe's isolation has not changed. He says it is the responsibility of every Zimbabwean to ensure that the country is re-admitted as a member of the family of nations, and that restrictive measures are removed.

“... full implementation of the Global Political Agreement signed by the three political parties in Zimbabwe is what the European Union uses as a benchmark to determine whether or not there has been progress in Zimbabwe to warrant the European Union to make a move.”

Western countries have refused to normalise trading relations with Zimbabwe, many of them taking the position that they want to see the back of Mugabe before rendering any help to revive the country’s economy wrecked by a decade-long economic and political crisis.

But Tsvangirai, who formed a unity government with Mugabe last year, said on Monday that the veteran leader was indispensable in the short term.

“If you want to support the people of Zimbabwe you have to support the coalition government,” Tsvangirai said in comments carried by state television after meeting Soren Pind, Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation.

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

Mugabe told journalists on Thursday he had been warmed by Tsvangirai’s apparent change of stance on the sanctions issue, a major source of disagreement within the unity government formed in February last year.

"It is a good statement,” Mugabe said. “He has done a good thing. It must be pursued. We would want to see him setting up a team that he believes can be effective in dealing with the sanctions.

"It need not be a large team but an effective one to go to Europe and America. We, under the GPA, are expected to set up a joint team and we did so, but Europe said no to it. They would not receive it."

Meanwhile a Zanu PF MP last night rejected claims by Maridadi that Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Stan Mudenge told a debt strategy seminar on February 4 that “the restrictive measures were imposed in 1999 well before the MDC was formed”.

In his statement, Maridadi said Mudenge, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and senior Zanu PF official, told the seminar that “these measures (sanctions) were imposed on Zimbabwe as a result of two things, namely the Land Reform Programme and President Mugabe's rule."

Tsholotsho North MP Jonathan Moyo, who attended the seminar, said Mudenge had only made reference to a 2001 encounter with former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in New York.

The encounter between Cook and Mudenge is captured in Gideon Gono’s book, Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy. In the book, Mudenge said Cook had demanded that Zimbabwe returns land to white farmers, and when told that was not possible, he retorted: “Stan, you have just condemned your people to suffering. They will suffer until they stone you in the streets.”

Moyo said: “Maridadi must not twist history in order to remind us that he’s a DJ. For his own information, the historic land reform did not start before 1999 but in 2000 when the MDC had even participated in an election.

“Mudenge is a professor, and if Maridadi was one of his students he would fail because he did not understand. The minister never said anything of the sort he refers to.

“This is a shocking case of revisionism which can only come from a DJ masquerading as spokesperson for the Prime Minister. The issue of sanctions is not a dancing matter, it’s very serious.”