January 31, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 27, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 30: The Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) said on Thursday its president Shahbaz Sharif had no serious health problem that would have forced him to go from Saudi exile to the United States for treatment. He had “many other things to do” there, the party said.

A party spokesman denied news reports attributing the politician’s sudden arrival in the US on Wednesday after more than two years of exile in Saudi Arabia to ailments ranging from simple vermiform appendix to a serious brain tumour.

Mr Shahbaz’s US trip in an apparent easing of travel restrictions on him has created quite a stir in the PML-N rank and file in the hope the development might precede an eventual return home for him and his elder brother and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Party information secretary Mohammad Siddiqueul Farooq said Mr Shahbaz had been operated upon for the removal of his appendix a couple of months ago, “but he is not suffering from any serious health problem” now.

“His visit to the United States may include a medical checkup but he has so many other things to do regarding Pakistan’s problems,” he told Dawn.

He described reports suggesting that the PML-N chief had developed a brain tumour as “all nonsense and malicious propaganda”.

Mr Shahbaz’s departure from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday marked the first time he or Nawaz Sharif have been allowed to move out of that country since President Pervez Musharraf sent them to a 10-year exile there in December 2000 with about 15 other family members in a deal brokered by the Saudi royal family.

Presidential spokesman Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi said on Wednesday the president had prior knowledge of Mr Shahbaz’s trip, which had been allowed on “humanitarian grounds”.

But the PML-N said no request for the trip was made to the Pakistan government.