Tsvangirai recants call for U.N. force

LONDON, June 26 (UPI) -- Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is denying he supports U.N. forces being brought to the country a day after he was quoted favoring that position.

The British newspaper The Guardian printed a letter Thursday from Tsvangirai in which he denied writing a commentary that the paper had printed a day earlier. The editorial Wednesday had called for United Nations peacekeepers in Zimbabwe, a position which Tsvangirai had also supported in a CNN telephone interview the same day.

"It's a proposal we are requesting," Tsvangirai told CNN. "It's because the violence is continuing, and it's violence that is being committed by armed forces against unarmed civilians. And all we are doing is to try to call for these peacekeepers so that normalcy can return and people can feel safe."

Thursday's letter to The Guardian from Tsvangirai apparently reversed that position.

"By way of clarification I would like to state the following: I am not advocating military intervention in Zimbabwe by the U.N. or any other organization," Tsvangirai wrote.