LAHORE, Feb 7: The PML-N is determined to hold a multi-party conference, no matter whether some other party stays away or expresses reservations about the representation of religious parties in it, highly placed party sources said on Wednesday.

“We are heading towards a national goal. We are on the right course. Any other course will help strengthen the hands of dictatorship”, the sources said in an obvious reference to those trying to delay the MPC.

The sources said the PML-N would not give up its struggle for democracy if any other party did not turn up at the moot.

The MPC would be held in London during the next few weeks and the PML-N leaders these days are delivering letters of invitation to the other parties.

A final date for the conference would be decided at a meeting between Ms Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, expected by the end of the current month or the beginning of the next.

It is said that at a meeting in the UAE PPP President Makhdoom Amin Fahim told Mr Sharif that his party had reservations about the participation of religious parties in the MPC. In response, the exiled former prime minister told him that Gen Pervez Musharraf, not the MMA, should be targeted by the opposition parties.

He also reportedly told Mr Fahim that if some party was averse to the MMA’s representation in the MPC, it should urge the United States to rid Pakistan of Gen Musharraf, as it was responsible for imposing the general on this country more than seven years ago.

The sources said that the MPC would make the positions of all parties very clear. “It will draw a line between the supporters of democracy and dictatorship”.

“The MMA people are not untouchables. They are of us, and we are of them”, the PML-N sources said.

Though the PML-N leaders hope that the ARD and the MMA would stay intact and continue to work against dictatorship from their respective platforms, there are others who think that realignments will take place after the conference.