ISLAMABAD, Nov 24: The newly-inducted minister for information and media development, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, on Sunday met Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali and discussed with him matters pertaining to the government’s relations with the country’s media, sources said.

Earlier, the minister held a one-to-one meeting with President Gen Pervez Musharraf soon after taking the oath on Saturday.

The sources said the minister had discussed with the prime minister the lines on the media policy of the new government and took certain instructions from the premier.

Informed sources told Dawn that President Musharraf in his meeting with the new information minister had asked him to take solid steps for making sure that the national press started supporting the new democratic set-up.

The president also directed him to keep defending the policies that the military government had undertaken in its three-year rule.

The president particularly mentioned the government’s devolution of power, economic uplift and good governance policies and urged the minister that their sizable publicity through the official electronic and print media should continue.

The sources claimed that Sheikh Rashid had won the confidence of the president as well as the prime minister being an aggressive politician and articulate advocate of the political stability.

He had assumed the role of the military president’s spokesman as well as an advocate of Jamali’s government, the sources claimed.

Sheikh Rashid had adopted a policy of co-existence with the military regime after the exile of Nawaz Sharif from the country and developed acrimony with other leaders of the Pakistan Muslim

League-N, who refused to allot him ticket for the Oct 10 elections.