ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: The government on Tuesday offered to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) to discuss its reservations about the National Security Council (NSC) in a council meeting to be held after the one scheduled for Thursday, sources said.
President General Pervez Musharraf's top aide and NSC secretary Tariq Aziz made the offer to MMA secretary general Maulana Fazlur Rahman in a telephonic conversation on Tuesday.
It was the NSC official's third telephonic contact with the Maulana in as many days to persuade him to attend Thursday's NSC meeting in his capacity as Leader of the Opposition, drop the planned anti-Musharraf campaign and discuss contentious issues. But Maulana Fazl told reporters afterwards that there was no going back on MMA's protest movement aimed at forcing the government to implement the MMA-government agreement which stipulated that President Musharraf would shed the army uniform by December 31.
The Maulana denied reports that he would miss the first protest rally to be held in Karachi on Nov 28. He said he would return home on Nov 27 from his Libyan trip to address the rally.
According to opposition sources, Mr Tariq Aziz told the MMA leader that it was not possible to discuss the alliance's reservations in the forthcoming NSC meeting but assured him that there would be on the next meeting's agenda.
The Maulana demanded that the prime minister head the NSC instead of the president to make the body acceptable to the opposition. He also made mention of the opposition's objection to what he called "unconstitutional" passage of the twin-office bill from parliament.
He said the decision whether he and NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani would attend the NSC meeting would be taken by the alliance's supreme council meeting in Karachi on Wednesday.
He, however, significantly remarked that the NWFP chapter of his party will present its case on Chief Minister Durrani's participation in the MMA meeting which was most likely to be accepted.
He expressed his inability to take a decision about his own participation because of MMA's reservations against the government's "unconstitutional" acts. Earlier, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had also called on the opposition leader at the latter's National Assembly chamber on Saturday to persuade him to abandon MMA's protest plan and attend the NSC meeting.
He welcomed the release of Asif Ali Zardari on bail but declined to comment on allegations that it was a result of some behind-the-scenes deal. He said Mr Zardari should have been released long ago.
All political prisoners should be released and exiled leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto should be allowed to come home and play their role in the country's politics, he added.
Asked about delay in the president giving assent to the twin-office bill, he said: "It would be better for him not to sign it and return it to fulfil the promise he had made with the MMA and the nation."
He expressed concern on reports about deletion of a declaration about Qadianiat and urged the government not to exclude the column in the proposed machine-readable passport otherwise it will be presumed that the government was pro-Qadiani and the alliance would sharply react and include the matter as a plank of its movement.
He also demanded that the government immediately confiscate blasphemous material included in the current issue of Newsweek magazine.
