WASHINGTON, July 6: A key MQM leader said on Thursday that the party was not averse to joining a PPP-led government if an understanding between President Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto led to such an arrangement.

Farooq Sattar, party’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly said: “If we felt it is in national interests to do so, we may join such a government.” He was accomapanied by Mohammed Anwar, a member of the party’s coordination committee.

They said the party would welcome Ms Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan.

Asked why MQM leader Altaf Hussain was not returning home, Dr Sattar said that he would return whenever the party felt it was safe.

Both of them said that MQM’s differences with the Sindh chief minister had been resolved.

Dr Sattar said the party had not yet “decided” if it would “support” President Musharraf’s re-election. “We believe this is not the right time to raise the divisive issue,” he said. “This could cause a political crisis.”

He urged the federal government to grant full autonomy to the provinces if it wanted to avoid “a 1971-like situation”.

He said he did not see a dichotomy in the party’s anti-feudal and anti-tribal policies and its decision to back tribal chiefs in Balochistan. “We are with the people of Balochistan and if the people support tribal chiefs, we cannot do anything about it,” he said.

Dr Sattar claimed that the opposition’s charter of democracy would not restore ‘real democracy’ in Pakistan. “It will only lead the country from military dictatorship to political dictatorship,” he said.

APP adds: The MQM would field candidates from constituencies spread all over the county in the 2007 general elections, Mr Sattar said.

Mr Sattar said that the MQM had completed organisation work in 12 districts in Sindh, 17 in Punjab 17, six in the NWFP, four in Balochistan and seven districts in the Azad Kashmir.