In the lead-up to the June presidential election runoff, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai dropped out of the race, citing death threats and beatings of supporters, and took refuge in the Dutch Embassy in Harare. The election was widely criticized by Western leaders, with the U.S. calling for UN sanctions against Zimbabwe's government.
Russia and China, which have UN Security Council vetoes, have dismissed calls for sanctions, saying they would hurt ordinary Zimbabweans, not Mugabe and his allies.
George Charamba, speaking to reporters after the African Union summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, said Western critics can "go hang a thousand times. They have no basis, they have no claim on Zimbabwe politics at all."
On Saturday, U.S. President George W. Bush called for an international arms embargo on Zimbabwe's "illegal government".
"The international community has condemned the Mugabe regime's ruthless campaign of politically motivated violence and intimidation," he said. Britain and Canada have called on countries to reject the election results.
However, Charamba called claims of election violence "a Western perspective."
He also said the leadership is willing to talk to the opposition, but that it cannot promise any power-sharing deal.
"We are talking about a ruling party that has offered dialogue to the opposition," he said. "We are not promising [Morgan Tsvangirai] anything beyond what will emerge from the discussions."
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called for Mugabe to be suspended from the African Union until he allows a fair and violence-free election to be held. Odinga, a former opposition leader who came to power in a deal following post-election violence in Kenya earlier this year, also called for African Union peacekeepers to be sent to Zimbabwe.
In response to the premier's comments, Charamba said: "Prime Minister Raila Odinga's hands drip with blood, raw African blood, and that blood is not going to be cleansed by any amount of abuse of Zimbabwe."
Despite criticism from Kenya's prime minister, Mugabe, 84, received a generally warm reception from African leaders at the summit.
