LONDON, Aug 27: The Sharif brothers appear determined to return home at the earliest, said barrister Aitzaz Ahsan while talking to Dawn after he had had a leisurely lunch spread over almost three hours with Nawaz and Shahbaz here on Monday.
Mr Ahsan, a leading light of the PPP and the lead lawyer of the team which successfully defended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in the Supreme Court against his dismissal by President General Pervez Musharraf, said he had gone to the offices of the PML-N here to pay a courtesy call on the former prime minister and his brother.
He said since it was a social call, there was no political angle to his meeting with Nawaz Sharif. “We only exchanged pleasantries and indulged in nostalgic workout most of the time.”
“Of course we discussed the current political situation in the country. He had his own perspective about it and I had mine. We also talked about the historic CJ case and the one which ended recently with the Supreme Court ruling that there was no bar against the return home of the Sharif family,” said Aitzaz when pressed for some details about the meeting.
When asked if he was sure the Sharifs would certainly go back home, he answered in the affirmative, “They have to, after the Supreme Court verdict. If they had no intention of going back then they should not have gone to the courts and I think they would not have if that is what they had intended to do. If they ask me, I will tell them to return home at the earliest. There is so much of political space waiting for them at this juncture.”
Interestingly, at about the time Aitzaz was meeting the Sharifs, his party leader, Benazir Bhutto, was engaged in what appeared to be the final round in her negotiations with Gen Musharraf’s emissaries who had come all the way from Islamabad.
When asked about the talks, Aitzaz refused to discuss either the ongoing negotiations between his party chairperson and Musharraf’s emissaries or the agenda of the PPP CEC’s meeting, which is expected to be held between Aug 28 and 31.
To a direct question if he is one of those in the PPP who are thinking of leaving the party if a power-sharing pact is signed and sealed between Benazir and Musharraf, he said he could never think of such a thing. “I belong to the PPP, it is my party, we have travelled a long distance through good times and bad times. So why would I be tempted at this juncture to leave the party.”
The PPP MNA, who is here to attend the party CEC’s meeting, will be delivering a lecture at the London School of Economics on Tuesday.
