MQM-govt standoff may end on Tuesday: Musharraf convenes meeting
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD July 29: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Saturday in principle agreed to withdraw resignations of its federal and Sindh ministers and advisers on the intervention of president General Pervez Musharraf.
According to official sources, the stand-off between the MQM and the Sindh chief minister will be resolved at a meeting to be chaired by President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday (August 1).
All stakeholders, including leaders of the MQM and the ruling PML, Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim and president’s top aides will attend the meeting.
It was learnt that MQM’s chief Altaf Hussain had rung up President Musharraf and informed him about the differences that had cropped up between his party members and the Sindh chief ministers.
Meanwhile, a statement issued from the party’s London secretariat quoted MQM’s chief as saying that the president had intervened into the issue of MQM’s ministers and advisers’ resignations and it had been resolved amicably.
Welcoming the president’s decision to convene an “important meeting” in Islamabad, he said it reflected how much the president took interest in the “people’s problems”.
The press release quoted him as saying that the ‘Haq Parast’ ministers and advisers had not resigned for their personal interests but they had done so to resolve people’s problems. The MQM, he said, had “full confidence” in General Musharraf that he “can and will resolve this situation satisfactorily and the resignation issue will be solved amicably”.
Gen Musharraf, the MQM sources claimed, had assured the party chief that he would take necessary steps not only to end the stalemate in Sindh politics, but would “ensure that the persons responsible for ignoring the grievances, expressed by the party in the past, were reprimanded”.
MQM sources claimed that the president had expressed surprise over the “extreme step” that the MQM leaders were “forced to take after being given a cold shoulder by the senior coalition partners in centre as well as Sindh province”.
Chairman of the MQM’s Rabita Committee Dr Imran Farooq, parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar, Tariq Javed, Salim Shahzad and other party leaders were contacted by media men on Saturday and their replies were almost identical.
They said they were determined not to take the resignations of their ministers back, but would continue to work together with the coalition in the period of crisis. They reiterated their unflinching support to President Musharraf and his policies.
The MQM sources claimed that the party had refused to talk on its grievances with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the meeting chaired by him in Sindh and decided to return to seek the president’s help.
The party leaders clearly told the premier that as he had been unable to remove their complaints despite having been told a number of times, he should not take pains to reconcile matters with the Sindh chief minister.
In the meantime, MQM legislators held a meeting at their headquarters ‘90’ (in Karachi) on Saturday to discuss the situation and came to the conclusion that the attitude of the Sindh chief minister had not changed much during the past three months.
Talking to Dawn on telephone MNA Kunwar Khalid Yunus said: “MQM legislators were unanimous that the CM was trying to divide instead of forging unity in the ranks of coalition partners on many issues.”
He cited the issue of removal of encroachments from Karachi on which the Sindh chief minister had taken a step which, he said, was unbecoming of him.
