Cape Town — South Africa's foreign ministry has rejected a newspaper report that Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has ordered negotiators for his ruling Zanu-PF party to boycott talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Johannesburg's Sunday Times newspaper reported that the talks, called for by the heads of state of countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), had collapsed.

Earlier in the week, Zimbabwean papers reported that MDC leaders had returned home to Zimbabwe after Zanu-PF negotiators failed to arrive for a second round of talks in Pretoria.

South African foreign ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said on Sunday that the report of a boycott was a "falsehood".

He added: "There is no shred of truth in the suggestion that President Robert Mugabe has spurned the SADC-led facilitation process. The process between the Zanu-PF and the MDC under the leadership of President Thabo Mbeki remains on course. The Zanu-PF delegation could not attend the scheduled discussions in Pretoria this week due to prior engagements, and for this they tendered an apology to the South African government. In this regard, efforts are under way to set a new date for the facilitation talks which the Zanu-PF delegation will attend."

The Sunday Times reported that the talks had collapsed after Mugabe decided at a Zanu-PF central committee meeting on July 7 that they should be boycotted. The newspaper said Mugabe and Mbeki were "on course for a head-on collision" and that Mugabe was also headed for a confrontation with the southern African heads of state in the SADC who appointed Mbeki as a mediator in March.