LONDON, April 21: Top leaders of the PPP, led by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, called on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif here on Saturday to, what sources from both sides said, reassure the latter that no deal was in the offing between Benazir Bhutto and President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Fahim and party secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf, who are in London supposedly on a separate mission, were reportedly instructed by PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto to meet PML-N leaders here to reassure them of her continued commitment to the Charter of Democracy and her determination to struggle side by side with the PML-N against military predominance in Pakistani politics.

The meeting which lasted for over three hours was attended from the PPP side by Mr Fahim, Mr Ashraf, former FIA officer-turned-tycoon Rehman Malik and Mustafa Khar and from the PML-N side by Mr Sharif, PML-N vice-president Ghous Ali Shah, information secretary Nadir Pervez and former PTV chairman Pervez Rashid. As PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif was in Scotland, he could not attend the meeting.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Fahim said he told Mr Sharif not to pay any attention to the stories about an impending deal between Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf because they were deliberately being circulated by government agencies to create a rift between the PPP and the PML-N and undermine their united struggle against the military dictatorship.

When asked if Mr Sharif sought a clarification from him about a recent statement by Ms Bhutto in which she admitted to having had contacts with government representatives, Mr Fahim answered in the affirmative but said he informed Mr Sharif that these had remained one-sided contacts only as it had always been the government which had sent its emissaries to Ms Bhutto on one excuse or the other and these meetings had ended up without yielding any tangible results because of Ms Bhutto’s insistence that she was not prepared to negotiate with a military-led government.

He also told the PML-N leader that it was a perception that the PPP leadership had been given substantive relief, “many of our workers are still in jail and the government is continuing to pursue the concocted corruption cases against her inside and outside the country”.

Sources close to the PPP said Mr Fahim succeeded in allaying at least about 75 per cent of Mr Sharif’s fears about an impending accord between Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf but could not completely eliminate the lingering doubts in his mind which kept stirring up by events such as the closure of the cell set up to pursue the cases against Ms Bhutto in Switzerland and Spain which, however, they said was a meaningless development as far as the party was concerned.