08 January 2005	Saturday	26 Ziqa'ad 1425

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WASHINGTON, Jan 7: Former Punjab chief minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif will come to New York soon after Eidul Adha, PML-N sources told Dawn in Washington.

"I have spoken to Mian Shahbaz Sharif Saheb and he told me he is coming," said Haji Mansha Khokhar, a prominent PML-N leader in Virginia. "He did not give a specific date but said he is coming soon after Eid."

Rohel Dar, president of PML-N, USA, said Mr Sharif would "undergo some medical check-up" at New York's Sloane Kettering Memorial Hospital. Doctors at this hospital had treated him for a life-threatening cancer in 2003.

Mr Sharif is expected to stay in New Jersey City as he did during his previous visit to the United States almost two years ago. "It would be a mistake to look for political implications in this visit. It is purely for health reasons," said one PML-N leader who did not want to be identified.

Pakistani political circles in Washington say that Saudi authorities agreed to allow Mr Sharif to leave the kingdom only after consulting the government of Pakistan. They are interpreting the visit as another gesture from Islamabad for promoting reconciliation with the opponents of the Musharraf government.

Former finance minister and a close confidante of the Sharif family, Ishaq Dar, had earlier told reporters in Islamabad that Shahbaz Sharif had sought permission from the Saudi government to proceed for a checkup in an emergency.

A community newspaper in Washington, however, interpreted the former Punjab chief minister's decision as "a shrewd tactic" to stay away from an expected meeting between Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari.