The President of Afghanistan has said he wants to write a “letter of condolence” to the mother of a soldier killed in his country.

President Hamid Karzai said he planned to write to Jacqui Janes, of Flint Close, Portslade, whose son Jamie, 20, was killed by a bomb in 2009 while in Afghanistan.

But Mrs Janes said she would not be accepting the expression of sympathy.

Guardsman Janes killed as a result of an explosion that happened while he was on a foot patrol near to Nad e-Ali district centre in central Helmand province Previously Mrs Janes made the news because then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote a letter to the family and spelt their name wrong.

President Karzai said he wanted to write to Mrs Janes following comments she made in The Sunday Times on Sunday.

In response to an article in the Sunday newspaper in which President Karzai reportedly described the Taliban as “brothers” and America as “rivals”, Mrs Janes said he was a “turncoat” and “disgusting”.

President Karzai is now claiming he was misquoted and his comments, including one which suggested it would be better if British troops had not gone to Afghanistan, were taken out of context.

A letter from Aimal Faizl, presidential spokesman from the Office of Hamid Karzai, has now been released.

The letter said: “The office of the president would like write a letter of condolence to the mother named as Jacqui Janes.”

It continued: “For people who lost their lives here we have immense sympathy.”

Speaking yesterday, Mrs Janes said she would not accept President Karzai's letter. She said: “I see this as him trying to apologise for my son's death. Well I won't accept it.

“He is playing a political game and trying to appease both the West and Afghanistan.

“What he said was awful - for Jamie, the other soldiers and the people of Afghanistan.

“He is disrespecting the memory of those who have died.”