ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: A meeting that was scheduled to be held between leaders of the People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) about the proposed multi-party conference was postponed on Wednesday after PPP’s president Makhdoom Amin Fahim left for Dubai.

The multi-party conference, scheduled to be held in

London next month, had been proposed by PML-N’s chief Nawaz Sharif.

PML-N’s information secretary Ahsan Iqbal said that Mr Fahim had informed the party’s chairman Raja Zafarul Haq on telephone from Dubai that he was in the UAE because of an urgent family matter. A source in the PPP told this reporter that Mr Fahim was in the UAE because of his son’s illness.

Mr Iqbal said the meeting would now be held on Saturday.

The PML-N information secretary further said that Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, MMA’s president Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman and chief of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Wednesday said they would attend the proposed conference.

Mr Iqbal said that the conference’s date would be finalised after the Saturday’s meeting with the PPP leaders. He said the PML-N had agreed to postpone the MPC for a few weeks to ensure PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto’s participation.

PPP’s chairperson Ms Bhutto is reluctant to attend the MPC because of the MMA’s participation in it. The PPP, sources said, also believed that the MPC was being convened ahead of its time and that it should be held after the government outlined its plan for President Gen Musharraf’s re-election.

Meanwhile, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif in a statement from London said the the aim of the MPC was to wage a joint struggle to rid the nation of military dictatorship, ensure restoration of democracy through fair and free elections and make Pakistan a democratic welfare sate.

Mr Sharif said that he had contacted various political leaders about the proposed MPC and they had responded positively. He said the opposition parties were aiming to secure an independent judiciary besides ensuring the return of the exiled leaders.