ISLAMABAD, July 28: The Pakistan People’s Party and the government on Saturday did not deny a meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, but kept mum regarding details of what had happened in Abu Dhabi on Friday.

Although government representatives while talking to media people toed the official line and denied any contact with the PPP, but privately more than one minister confirmed that Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf had met in the UAE on Friday and that the meeting had remained “positive”.

Instead of confirming or denying the meeting, Ms Bhutto in her first interview to a Sindhi news channel after the reported meeting said if the Presidency was denying the meeting, why was she being asked the question.

She repeatedly dodged questions about the purpose of her short visit to Abu Dhabi, which tells of some kind of contact between her and Gen Musharraf, otherwise she would have denied it.

Asked why did she not take senior party leadership into confidence before leaving London, she said there should be no complain in the party because whatever she was doing was in consultation with party high-ups.

“In the past, they talked only about (the system) minus Benazir, but we were not ready to talk to them on (any plan) minus Benazir,” she said, hinting that Gen Musharraf might have agreed this time to allow Ms Bhutto to play some kind of role in the country’s future set-up.

Talking to Dawn, Federal Minister for Railways Shaikh Rashid Ahmad said he could only say that if any meeting had taken place between Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf then it was very successful.

Replying to a question, the minister said the Chaudhry brothers (PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi), Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Sardar Farooq Leghari, Hamid Nasir Chattha or he himself might have been taken into confidence by the president before his meeting with Ms Bhutto.

Mr Ahmad objected to the media for using the term ‘deal’ for the contact between Gen Musharraf and Ms Bhutto and said the media should use some proper and parliamentary term for it.

He claimed that Gen Musharraf’s uniform had not been discussed at all in the meeting. He said meetings with the PPP leadership were part of the government’s effort to develop a national consensus on major national issues in the wake of frequent suicide attacks.

When asked what the two leaders had discussed, the minister said it was obvious that they would have discussed the formation of a caretaker set-up, withdrawal of cases against Ms Bhutto and her return to the country.

Ms Bhutto’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar neither denied nor confirmed the meeting, saying he was not aware of it.