DUBAI, April 16: Mian Nawaz Sharif has challenged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to stop his return, vowing to land in Pakistan at the ‘right time’. In an interview with Dubai’s Khaleej Times, to be published on Tuesday, the former prime minister said: “I will choose the time to return to Pakistan and President Musharraf cannot stop me from returning”.
When reminded about the failed attempt on the life of his brother, former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, and in the manner he was bundled out of Pakistan, the former prime minister said the episode could not be repeated in his case.
“Musharraf can not do it again and again,” Nawaz Sharif told the interviewer and predicted that ‘change is imminent’, saying ‘the forthcoming elections in Pakistan will determine the direction of the country’.
The Gulf News, another Dubai daily, quoted a PML(N) leader last week as saying the Amir of Qatar was mediating between the government and Nawaz Sharif for the return of the former prime minister and his family to Pakistan. A Qatar-based businessman and a close confidant of Sharif, Saif-ur-Rehman, was reported to be behind the move.
In his interview to Khaleej Times, Nawaz Sharif, the leader of his own faction of the Muslim League, refused to comment on the reported contacts between Benazir and the government saying he could only speak for himself. He said: “My party has not been in touch with the military rulers and the PML-N is strictly abiding by the Charter of Democracy in letter and spirit.”
The PML(N) leader also told interviewers that the present parliament had ‘already outlived its life’ and if General Musharraf tried to re-elect himself by this parliament then the entire nation would rise in protest.
He said: “It will be an ideal situation if the whole country rises, the nation rises, against military interventions. Unless we check frequent military interventions, Pakistan will not be recognized as a civilized country in the comity of nations.”
The presence of Nawaz Sharif in Dubai and the return of Benazir Bhutto to her present residence saw many meetings and parleys, some covert and some open, between political leaders of all shades.
There were also reports that Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool and Tariq Aziz, the top aide of President Musharraf, were in Dubai in early April and had met Benazir. Amin Fahim, the president of the PPP, who was in Dubai to consult his leader, denied such reports.
