Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president,Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, has welcomed with "open arms" a high-level EU delegation to Harare for talks on easing diplomatic relations.
The meeting on Sunday was the first time in seven years the 27-member bloc, which maintains sanctions against Zimbabwe, has met the man that Western nations have repeatedly vilified.
"We welcome you with open arms," Mugabe told the delegation ahead of the talks.
The talks did not cover the ending of sanctions, Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden's development minister, who was part of the delegation and whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said.
Mugabe said he had established a "good rapport" with the delegation.
But only a day earlier, Mugabe hit out at Western countries calling them "neocolonialists" who can "never be our friends".
'Regime change'
"They still want our land," he told the youth wing of his Zanu-PF party on Friday.
"Why are voices being sounded across the world for regime change to take place in Zimbabwe?"
"They still want our land. Why are voices being sounded across the world for regime change to take place in Zimbabwe?"
Robert Mugabe,Zimbabwean presidentMugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain nearly three decades ago, said his people were being punished and forced to live in poverty because of Western sanctions.
The EU disputes that claim.
Karel De Gucht, the EU development commissioner, who is also part of the delegation, said the bloc's sanctions against Zimbabwe have "no impact on the common population".
The European officials plan to meet both Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's prime minister, whose appointment as part of a South African-mediated power sharing deal has begun to reverse years of isolation by world powers.
But Zimbawbe's government has been slow to realise change due to ongoing differences between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.http://english.aljazeera.net
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