LAHORE, April 8: PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif said on Thursday he would come back to Pakistan knowing fully well that the government would do everything agonizing for him.

"I am not expecting a good treatment at the hands of the rulers on landing back in my country; they can go to any extent. They will do anything which causes me more and more pain. But I am prepared to face all consequences," said the exiled chief minister while talking to Dawn from London.

Asked what if the government deported him, he said such a step would amount to committing contempt of court. He said the Supreme Court had allowed him to come back and the government had no right to block his return on any ground. He dismissed assertions that by returning to Pakistan he would be violating the agreement under which the Sharif family had been banished to Saudi Arabia in December 2000 reportedly for a period of 10 years.

The PML-N president said the Sharif family had been forced to leave the country and those talking of the likely violation of the so-called agreement must ask their conscience if what they had done to the Sharifs was justifiable under the law and the constitution. Anybody with a conscience, he said, would not refer to an accord which was non-existent.

When it was pointed out that Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed had said it time and again that the Sharifs had brought the government under tremendous foreign pressure to be able to leave the country, Mian Shahbaz Sharif said if this was so the minister should let the nation know why he had sought votes for himself in the general elections in the name of Mian Nawaz Sharif, who was out of the country at the time of polls.

Asked if the accord was no obstacle, as he was claiming, why he was coming alone, leaving the rest of the Sharifs still in exile, Mian Shahbaz Sharif said the entire Sharif family would one day come back home. He said Mian Nawaz Sharif was not only his elder brother but also his leader and he could not take any step without his consent.

He said the date of his return would be decided by the party leaders keeping in view all aspects of the prevailing situation. "Very soon", replied the PML-N president when asked if it would be possible for him to return during the current month.

Mian Shahbaz Sharif said the country was facing very serious problems which could be solved only through collective wisdom. He proposed that the government should hold an all-party conference which should be participated in by leaders of all parties, including Mian Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto.

The proposed APC, he said, should work out a national agenda which should then be implemented. He believed that tensions would de-escalate if the government allowed the former prime ministers to come back to their country. He said there was a dire need for a national reconciliation at this juncture.

"Are you prepared to sink your differences with President Musharraf to bring an end to the tensions and lay the foundation of a harmonious relationship", he was asked. In response, he said for the time being it was a premature question. But at the same time, he said, there was no hard and fast rule in politics.

He said the first step to reduce tensions could be taken by the government by allowing the former prime ministers to come back home. He said reiterations that these leaders would not be allowed to come back, would only add to the bitterness.

He said there was only one case pending against him and that too was fake, registered in his absence. Still, he said, he was prepared to face the case of the alleged police encounter. He recalled that the government had done its best to get him declared a defaulter at the time of the elections. But, he said, it had failed in its designs.