South African President Thabo Mbeki is making it plain to Mr Robert Mugabe that the Zimbabwean leader should no longer expect his protection, government officials said.
Explaining South Africa's tougher stance over the escalating Zimbabwean crisis this week, officials said Mr Mbeki's patience was wearing thin with its neighbour,
The Sunday Times
newspaper reported sources as saying.
"He [Mbeki] wants Mugabe to know that he should not expect protection any more. Up to now we have rallied behind him," one senior official told the paper.
Other government sources told Reutersthey could not expand on the remarks, but said the comments were fair. "It's a nice, accurate account of what's going on behind the scenes," one said.
Mr Mbeki told foreign journalists on Thursday that the situation in Zimbabwe was worsening and may deteriorate further if presidential elections next year were not free and fair.
"If you had elections in Zimbabwe which were not seen by the people as legitimate...then you'd then probably end up with a situation worse than it is now," Mr Mbeki said.
Clearly in a situation in which people get disenfranchised, in which people get beaten up so that they don't act according to their political convictions, obviously there can't be free elections," Mr Mbeki added.
Officials said the situation in Zimbabwe was putting increased pressure on Mr Mbeki, who was receiving regular phone calls from Western leaders asking him to get a message through to Mugabe, The Sunday Timesreported.
In Zimbabwe, the government-controlled Sunday Mailnewspaper quoted a senior official of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party as saying it was quite sad if Mr Mbeki made the statements attributed to him, including blaming Zimbabwe's economic crisis on wrong policies.
"We in ZANU-PF believe these remarks cannot be true because if they are, then that would be quite sad," said the official.
"President Mbeki, more than anyone else, knows too well that this region and our country in particular was economically and militarily destabilised by apartheid," the official said.