LAHORE, Feb 18: PML-N President Mian Shahbaz Sharif will stay in the United States for some three months needed for recovery and some post-surgery check-ups, after which the party will decide his next destination, a confidant of the Sharifs said here on Tuesday.

Ishaq Dar, president of the party’s overseas organization, who was present in New York when the former chief minister was treated for “localized tumour” caused by appendicitis operation in Saudi Arabia, has just returned home.

At a news conference, he said reports that Shahbaz Sharif had brain tumour were baseless. He was critical of the party leaders who had been telling the media that the former chief minister had no health problem or had flown to the United States with a political agenda.

Shahbaz Sharif’s spokesman Farrukh Shah and a relative, Asad Muhammad Khan, were also present.

Replying to a question, Dar said the rulers were wrong in their assertion that the Sharifs had left the country after making some deal with them.

“In case there was any, it was illegal, immoral and unconstitutional”.

He argued that when there was a threat to somebody’s life, he could do anything to avert it. Had the Sharifs not left the country, the former prime minister might have met the fate similar to that of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, he said.

About the return home of the exiled family, Mr Dar said the Sharifs would not like to any their Saudi hosts.

He denied a statement by party’s acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi that former ISI chief Gen Mehmud had contacted Mian Nawaz Sharif to seek his support to overthrow the government of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

He said he had discussed the authenticity of the claim with the Sharifs and both of them had denied it. A man who had played a key role in the ouster of the Sharif government could not be expected to approach the deposed prime minister to overthrow the Musharraf regime, the former finance minister said. A PML-N candidate for the Senate, Mr Dar said his party would not like to destabilize the present government despite the fact that it had only a paper thin majority in the house. The party had never itself in intrigues in the past and would not like to do so in the future, he emphasized.

He said the PML-N would play the role of an effective opposition party.

However, he believed that the system would not survive for long.

In response to a question, Mr Dar said his party wanted a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis as war would be devastating for the Ummat as well as Pakistan.

“Pakistan must act meaningfully. For the time being, we are following an apologetic attitude”.