Zimbabwe on Thursday rejected a fledgling initiative by Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, to broker a solution to the country’s economic and political crisis.

George Charamba, spokesman for president Robert Mugabe, told the state-owned Herald newspaper that Zimbabwe was “not a UN issue”, and described a previous invitation to Mr Annan, issued during its controversial slum clearance operation, as “stale”. He said the Harare government was “unaware of any UN intervention on Zimbabwe”, and that the UN should instead be challenging “illegal sanctions imposed on it”.