Foreign Affairs Minister, Phandu Skelemani, yesterday denied apologising to Robert Mugabe at the recently held SADC Summit in Pretoria, South Africa.

He was responding to a Zimbabwean government controlled newspaper, the Herald, which on Monday reported that Skelemani praised Robert Mugabe's behaviour in the ongoing negotiations facilitated by South Africa President, Thabo Mbeki.

The paper also attributes quotations to the Botswana foreign minister criticising MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, for being unreasonable during the negotiations.

Skelemani yesterday labelled the Herald's report as "maaka a matala - blatant lies".

"It is not our business to praise Mugabe, or anybody. We said the parties are close to reaching an agreement, and so no one should force them to sign as it is not us the SADC membership who is negotiating. It is the Zimbabweans who are negotiating.

"Who am I to declare that the negotiations have gone well and dictate to people to sign?

"Even President Mbeki does not have those powers to dictate to the parties to sign," Skelemani said over the phone.

The Herald claims that while at the summit, Skelemani asked for more time to review the documents presented to him by Mbeki. The paper said that when the organ met again the next day, Skelemani told the summit how disappointed he was with the hard-to-please Tsvangirai.

He said his analysis of the situation is that Tsvangirai has misled them on Zimbabwe's political processes. He said they had been misinformed and were of the opinion that Tsvangirai should accept the agreement that Mbeki had facilitated as it was quite reasonable.

His exact words were, "What more does Tsvangirai expect? But we cannot order him to accept the agreement, all we can do is try and persuade him to see sense," Skelemani said, runs the Herald story in part.

Reacting, Skelemani said that while it is true that he received papers from Mbeki, he never asked for any adjournment of the summit so he can go and read the document.

"It was already 2:30am in the morning when the meeting ended. I did not go to sleep, but I read through the document until 4am, and realised that the object of contention is executive power. I offered a piece of advice and said no one should be bent on frustrating the other during the talks. I never praised Mugabe. What for? What has he done?" asked Skelemani.

Skelemani continued: "I never said Tsvangirai has misled us. How can he mislead us? Have we ever sat down with him during the talks? Our political stance on Zimbabwe was never influenced by what Tsvangirai told us. Our decision emanated from the report by election observers. That is the basis of our stance.

"I think somebody wanted to shame Tsvangirai, and forced the words into our mouths. It is not our business to shame Tsvangirai. It is up to his people, the Zimbabweans to declare whether they have lost interest in him or not. I was one of the people who said, let the negotiations continue," said Skelemani.

Skelemani also confirmed that MDC officials, led by Tsvangirai, were here early in the week to see President Ian Khama.

"You should remember that ZANU-PF people have been here twice to brief the President on the situation in Zimbabwe. When the MDC people come here we never make it a secret. The first time Tsvangirai came to see us, I let the Zimbabwean embassy know that he is here, and that we did not invite him, lest we are perceived to be taking sides," Skelemani said.

"Our doors remain open. Even the ZANU-PF people will be welcome. We want to talk to every party, perhaps there will be a solution."

Skelemani said he is not under pressure to prove that what The Herald reported about him was a lie. "I was not alone there. I was with several government officials who can attest on my behalf," he said.

It is not only Skelemani who is said to have showered Mugabe with praises and offered apologies for their earlier stance.

The Herald said a Nigerian official flew all the way from Lagos to offer his country's apologies on behalf of the Nigerian president, while the Zambian foreign affairs minister also did the same at the meeting, along with Tanzania.

"The rest of the people mentioned there I cannot speak for them. They are of age, they will respond for themselves," Skelemani said.