Wellington  - The future of New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters was under a cloud on Saturday as a millionaire who donated cash to his party accused him of "blatant lying."

Wealthy property developer Sir Robert Jones insisted that Peters asked him for a donation to his nationalist New Zealand First party before the last election in 2005 and said he was asked to make out his cheque for 25,000 New Zealand dollars (about 18,500 US dollars) to a trust administered by Peters' brother.

After party president George Groombridge told reporters he had never heard of the trust and did not know Jones had donated money, Peters disclaimed any involvement with the trust and said Jones's memory was failing.

Jones was quoted in the Weekend Herald as saying he believed a complaint to the police would be made shortly and predicted that Peters was "going to die on his own sword on this matter."

The millionaire told another paper, "I've very sad that Winston has now resorted to blatant lying."

Peters denied on Friday having asked Jones for a donation and referred all questions about the cash to the trust, but newspapers said his brother Wayne did not return calls.

An angry Peters told journalists that any suggestion that the "money wandered off somewhere else" was not true and rejected "any idea that it might have got somehow into my pocket."

He called a press conference Friday to condemn "a campaign of innuendo, misrepresentation and character assassination promoted by some particular interests for their own purposes."

Peters already faces a possible hearing by Parliament's privileges committee and could be subject to an investigation by the Auditor- General over other donations to his party.

"With more revelations expected to flow, a tipping point could be reached where Peters is simply too compromised to carry on," veteran political commentator John Armstrong wrote in the Weekend Herald.

But Peters's party supports Clark's minority Labour-led government in exchange for him getting the foreign affairs portfolio while it stays out of a formal coalition.

And analysts said that while the allegations have seriously embarrassed the Prime Minister, she cannot sack him, even if she wants to, because he could withdraw his party's support, forcing her to call an early election which current polls show she would be certain to lose.

The row over party donations overshadowed talks Peters was to have in Auckland on Saturday with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She is the highest ranking Washington visitor to New Zealand since 1999 and persuading her to make the trip had been hailed as Peters' biggest diplomatic coup since becoming foreign minister three years ago. (dpa)