LAHORE, June 14: A consultative meeting between leaders of various opposition parties and President Pervez Musharraf, scheduled for June 18, has been postponed due to differences in the viewpoints of the two sides.

Information Minister Nisar A. Memon telephoned Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan on Friday to tell him that a separate meeting the ARD was seeking with Gen Musharraf to discuss its set of demands was not possible. He said the APC could be held only on one-point agenda: Situation on Pakistan-India borders and the way the government should handle it.

The ARD president told him that if Gen Musharraf was not willing to listen to the opposition’s demands, the ARD was unable to participate in any meeting. He said the ARD was under moral obligation to convey its demands to Gen Musharraf so that the nation knew that the alliance was serious in having them accepted.

He said since Dera Bugti had been surrounded by law- enforcement agencies and a large number of PML-N leaders, including Raja Zafarul Haq, Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Siddiqul Farooq, had been arrested by the Islamabad police, it was not possible for the ARD to turn up at the June 18 meeting.

It is said that Raja Zafarul Haq telephoned the ARD chief to tell him that his party could not participate in the June 18 meeting. He also asked the Nawabzada that he should contact parties in the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal to tell them that they should also follow suit.

The MMA, it is said, will review the situation on Sunday.