Harare - Zimbabwe's National Security

Council (NSC) in a maiden news conference on Wednesday accused

allies of the late former leader Robert Mugabe and some

opposition officials of peddling rumours of an impending

military coup and said the country was stable.

Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis in more than a decade and

rising public anger have stoked concern the military, which

ended Mugabe's more than three-decades rule in November 2017,

might step in again.

Giving its first news conference since being formed in 2013,

the NSC said speculation was intensifying that Mugabe allies

living in exile were plotting a comeback with the help of

elements in the military and the opposition.

The NSC is chaired by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and its

members include security ministers and military chiefs, who were

present at Wednesday's media briefing.

"For the avoidance of doubt, there is no coup in the

making," Kazembe Kazembe, the home affairs minister in charge of

the police and an NSC member, told reporters.

"We would like to take this opportunity and assure the

nation and international community at large that Zimbabwe ... is

peaceful and stable internally."

The 2018 elections were supposed to end Zimbabwe's pariah

status with the West, but Mnangagwa's government has been

accused of resorting to Mugabe-era tactics of heavy handedness

against opponents.

The main opposition accuses the government of using a

coronavirus lockdown to erode political rights.

Kazembe said the authorities would tackle those spreading a

"medley of falsehoods".

Without naming them, he accused some foreign embassies in

Harare of misleading their capitals on affairs in Zimbabwe and

relying on the opposition and former ruling party officials in

their intelligence gathering.

"They also have, in the process, brazenly jettisoned any

semblance of diplomatic impartiality and finesse in blatant

violation of the peremptory norms of international law," Kazembe

said.

Reuters