September 16, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1429

LONDON, Sept 15: President Asif Ali Zardari is believed to have extended his stay here by one day and now he is likely to fly direct to Islamabad on Wednesday by a PIA commercial flight.

His departure plan is said to have been changed because of addition of three more meetings in his engagement schedule on Tuesday and also because he needs to be in Islamabad by Wednesday evening to keep his appointments fixed earlier.

President Zardari will be meeting on Tuesday Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Britain’s Permanent Representative to UN’s Disarmament Conference Alan Duncan, MQM chief Altaf Hussain and British Development Minister Shahid Malik.

The first meetings will be held at 10 Downing Street and the last three at the Churchill Hayat Regency where the president is staying. The meetings are expected to take him right through into Tuesday night.

In his meetings with the British leaders, Mr Zardari is expected to reiterate Pakistan’s position that it would be counter-productive to send troops from across Afghanistan into Pakistan, plead for strategic patience on the part of US and UK and seek UK’s help in this hour of Pakistan’s dire economic need.

He is likely to be assisted in these meetings by High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan and Rehman Malik, adviser to the PM on interior.

Altaf Hussain has already made known his complaints against his party’s senior coalition partner in Sindh and Mr Zardari is likely to assuage his fears in this regard. They will also discuss the issue of MQM’s inclusion in the federal cabinet. Mr Alan Duncan’s call on President Zardari is said to be purely social as he will be offering condolences on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto who was his classmate in Oxford.