U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday announced a 73-million-dollar humanitarian aid "directly to the people in Zimbabwe."

"I have committed 73 million dollars in assistance to Zimbabwe," Obama told reporters after meeting with Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in the White House.

But the president stressed that the aid will not be going to the government directly "because we continue to be concerned about consolidating democracy, human rights and rule of law."

The visiting prime minister is in Washington for seeking support for his government's efforts to rebuild Zimbabwe's economy without bolstering President Robert Mugabe, who has been accused by the West of misrule in his country.

Under the Bush administration, the United States imposed sanctions on the Mugabe-led government, in order to protest Harare's increasing assault on human rights and rule of law.

Despite of the sanctions, the United States continues to provide more than 900 million dollars humanitarian assistance to the country's people from 2002 to 2008.

The Obama administration, who decided in March to prolong the sanctions for another year, has said it would consider resume aid to Harare if certain benchmarks of democratic reform and rule of law in the country are met. 　

Source:Xinhua