Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has refuted media reports insinuating that there was bad blood between him and the late former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Mugabe told reporters on his return from Mandela's memorial that in fact, the two shared a historical alliance forged on the basis of their fight against racial segregation, imperialism and colonialism.

"I don't know about any feud. If anything, there was an alliance. We worked very well with him when he came out of prison. We gave him support," Mugabe was quoted as saying by the Herald newspaper Thursday. "There was no feud, where was the feud, what feud?"

Mugabe was among world leaders from around 90 countries who paid tribute to Mandela at a memorial service in Johannesburg Tuesday.

He also joined other dignitaries Wednesday in viewing the body of the anti-apartheid icon as it lay in state at Union Buildings, Pretoria ahead of Sunday's burial at his rural home in Eastern Cape.

"We have lost a great friend, a revolutionary and a man of real principle," Mugabe said of Mandela, adding that the historical alliance created in the fight against imperialism and colonialism "will not have been historically lost by our being absent, and by not really being present to see this great man being given his eternal rest."

The two men, both iconic figures in the region, shared similar path of life as Africa's prominent liberation leaders. Both were nationalist activists during the white minority rule and were imprisoned by the white regimes, Mandela for 27 years and Mugabe for 10 years. They were elected first black Head of State of the respective countries and played pivotal role in guiding the development paths of their countries under the black majority rule.

Various media publications had since the death of Mandela on Dec. 5 been trying to create an impression of a rift between Mugabe and Mandela, with some jumping to conclude Mugabe had taken longer to send a condolence message.

Some referred the alleged feud to Mugabe's previous criticism of Mandela for being too soft on whites as one pointer to a strained relationship between the two.

"Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks)," Mugabe said in a documentary broadcast by the South African Broadcasting Corporation in May. "That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint."

The Zimbabwean president has been criticized by the West for radical land reform programs since early 2000 which chased away thousands of white farmers to make way for indigenous black peasants. Mugabe and his ruling party defend their records, saying the actions are necessary to correct the wrongs done by white settlers in the colonial time.

After Mandela's departure, Mugabe remains one of the very few African liberation heroes left. Turning 90 in next February, Mugabe is expected to finish his mandate as president in 2018.