Wellington, Jun 12 (AP) The New Zealand government will waive sanctions and allow visas to be issued to players in the Zimbabwe cricket team, which is due to tour New Zealand next year for the first time in 11 years.
New Zealand will tour Zimbabwe in October -- its first visit there since 2005 -- and a reciprocal tour by Zimbabwe is planned for early 2012.
Foreign minister Murray McCully today said that sanctions applied by New Zealand against Zimbabwe, to express opposition to human rights abuses by the regime of Robert Mugabe, would be waived to allow Zimbabwe's tour to proceed.
McCully said he had informed New Zealand Cricket that the decision was conditional "on the situation in Zimbabwe not deteriorating in a significant way.