LAHORE, Oct 9: President Asif Zardari and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif met in Islamabad on Wednesday night and managed to curtail rising tension between ruling partners – the PPP and the PML-N -- in the province.

Official sources said that both the sides agreed to maintain a status quo in Punjab as Mr Sharif promised to give more powers to the PPP ministers in the provincial cabinet while Mr Zardari assured him that Governor Salmaan Taseer would neither give any statement against the PML-N government nor would interfere in the administrative affairs of the province.

CONDEMNED: Political leaders on Thursday condemned the Islamabad police lines and Upper Dir bomb blasts.

PML-N chief and former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif said the enemy forces were trying to destabilize the country besides playing with the lives of innocent citizens.

Jamaat-i-Islami amir Qazi Husain Ahmad and naib amir Liaqat Baloch strongly condemned the blasts and alleged that foreign forces were behind the terror acts.

They regretted that the incumbent government was following the polices of Musharraf era which had pushed the country to the brink of disaster.

They believed that getting rid of the policies was the only solution to the ongoing wave of terrorism.