LAHORE, June 6: Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Qazi Husain Ahmad has said that his party is ready to sign an agreement with Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto for the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s dissociation from the Balochistan government, if she attends the conference of opposition parties called by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in London.

Replying to a question at a news conference after a meeting of the Jamaat’s central executive committee here on Wednesday, Qazi Husain advised Ms Bhutto not to opt out of the conference. If she abstained, she and her party would stand isolated, he warned.

He was of the view that the decision by an opposition party to abstain from the conference would amount to boarding a sinking boat. “We hope that the PPP leader will not take a decision that warrants a political suicide for her and her party,” he said.

He said the situation required that Ms Bhutto ensured her participation in the conference to pave way for a grand opposition alliance.

The JI committee met at its headquarters at Mansoora, with Qazi Husain in the chair, to discuss a host of issues, including the statement issued after the corps commanders’ meeting and the recent meeting of the National Security Council, which were followed by a crackdown on political activists across Punjab.

The JI amir told reporters that his party feared imposition of another martial law and believed that any extra-constitutional step would deepen conflict and polarisation.

He said the country was in the grip of a virtual martial law, which was now showing its real face by twisting the opposition’s arm. He said the regime had damaged the state institutions and made the armed forces subject to criticism for the first time. He said the MMA understood that the armed forces had to be national in character and subject to the constitutional dictates rather than an individual and a few other commanders.

He said the MMA had accepted the invitation to attend the London conference. He said efforts were afoot to convene the meeting of a committee in Islamabad on June 11 to devise ways and means to work out a joint strategy for the conference.

The committee had been formed at the national consultative conference last month to devise a strategy for preventing President Pervez Musharraf from getting re-elected from the present assemblies in uniform and securing the establishment of an interim government of national consensus to hold the next elections, he said.

He said the arrest of hundreds of political activists had demonstrated how nervous the regime was. The JI meeting adopted a resolution condemning the Muttahida Qaumi Movement as a ‘fascist’ organisation, which must be banned.