Australian Andrew Symonds has further muddied the waters of cricket's latest racism row, telling a newspaper that racial taunts were okay as long as they came from friends.

Symonds, who claimed that India's Harbhajan Singh called him a "monkey" during the second Test at the SCG, said racism was unacceptable, though he had become used to taunts and had learnt to tolerate it -- but only from friends.

"You can have a joke to me about anything and any part of racism and I'll laugh about it," he told The Sunday Telegraph. But if I'm not your friend, if you're an opposition player or something like that, it is unacceptable."

Singh received a three-match suspension for allegedly making the remark, prompting India to threaten to cancel the tour. A date has not been set for the appeal of the suspension.

"Even with opposition players if I do know them well and they want to joke about something like that, it doesn't stir me up, so what's happened is something I and the Australian boys have taken very seriously."