July 12, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1424

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ISLAMABAD July 11: The Prime Minister’s House on Friday officially contacted leaders of the opposition to confirm their availability for a possible meeting in the next few days, officials told Dawn.

Sources said that opposition leaders had been advised to keep themselves available for a meeting, which was likely to be held soon after the return of Pakistan Muslim League-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain from abroad.

Party sources were confident that Mr Shujaat would return at the beginning of the next week.

One of the sources went on to say that there was a possibility of the situation taking a dramatic turn for the better, adding that it might help save the fragile system.

In a related development, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has convened a meeting of the government coalition parties on Saturday to discuss the upcoming government-opposition talks on the Legal Framework Order.

Leaders of all coalition parties are expected to attend the meeting.

It was learnt that the coalition parties’s meeting was likely to focus on the legislative business that the Jamali government wanted to start in the next session, which is expected to be summoned by July-end.

A party source said that the prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali would also take the coalition partners into confidence on the dialogue with the opposition, specially with regard to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s objections over Legal Framework Order.

When asked about the significance of the coalition parties’ meeting, Millat Party’s secretary-general Mohammad Ali Durrani said: “It would be no more than a normal mutual consultation,” adding that he would represent the party during the meeting as parliamentary leader of the National Alliance Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari was in Choti Zaireen, his home town, and was unlikely to reach the capital in time.