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Nawaz dares Pervez to deport him
Saudi offer to keep him, brother again
Kargil |
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PML united against deal with Benazir
Ultra behind deadliest Iraq attack killed
No APEC membership for India till 2010
B’desh lifts ban on indoor politics
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Nawaz dares Pervez to deport him
London, September 9 “I don’t think there is any justification or there is any reason for doing that. And especially after the Supreme Court judgement. Musharraf will be commiting a contempt of the court if he does not act upon the verdict in literal spirit. And I don’t think he dare do this,” Sharif said in an interview to NDTV in London ahead of his planned return after a seven-year exile. Sharif was asked what he will do if Musharraf deports him to Saudi Arabia. In a series of interviews to newspapers and TV channels, Sharif said he will not be cowed down by Musharraf’s threats and that he was not deterred by them. Sharif also told the Indian TV channel there is no pressure from the Saudi Government on him not to return to Pakistan. The PML (N) leader said he has a duty to perform in Pakistan and that people are looking forward to his return to get the country out of the “mess.”
— PTI
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Saudi offer to keep him, brother again Islamabad, September 9 Saudi Prince and intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, who along with Saad Hariri, son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, met President Pervez Musharraf yesterday to discuss the Sharif brothers’ plans to return home, said later that Riyadh was ready to host them again. Saudi Arabia would welcome the Sharifs if they were deported by the Pakistani government, local daily ‘The News’ quoted him as saying. To a question, he said Musharraf did not raise the issue of sending the Sharifs back to Jeddah. Aziz and Hariri, during a press conference yesterday, asked Sharif, who has been allowed by the Supreme Court to return home, to abide by an “agreement” he signed to stay in ten-year exile. — PTI
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Kargil
On the eve of his return home, former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to set up a commission if elected to power to fix responsibility for the “tragic” Kargil conflict even as he admitted that he had “let down” his then Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said he wished the Kargil incident had not happened.
Maintaining that Pervez Musharraf was behind the 1999 Pakistani aggression in Kargil without his knowledge, he said the then Army chief had "subverted" the process of improving relations with India and that he regretted not having taken any action against him. Favouring friendly and peaceful relations with India, Sharif told Karan Thapar's "India Tonight" programme for CNBC that the Kargil incident continues to "haunt" him and will be remembered in the history of bilateral relations. "Kargil was a very tragic incident in the history of the relations between the two countries... I wish it had not happened," said the PML-N leader who was ousted as the Prime Minister by Musharraf in a bloodless coup three months after the Indo-Pak conflict. "After Kargil, the Indian Prime Minister had said he was let down by the Pakistani Prime Minister (Sharif). I think he is justified in making the remarks. I accept that," Sharif said. Insisting that he had no knowledge of Musharraf's plans about Kargil, Sharif said there were tapes to prove it. He regretted not having set up a commission like India to go into the Kargil episode to fix the responsibility for it. "I did not take certain actions which should have been taken," said Sharif, who was imprisoned after the coup and then forced into exile in 2001 by Musharraf.
— PTI
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PML united against deal
with Benazir The central working committee (CWC) of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has unanimously rejected the deal talks between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and PPP chairwoman Benazir Bhutto, but the committee was divided on the expected return of former premier Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan. The CWC, co-chaired by PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, discussed in detail Nawaz’s return, the president’s re-election in uniform and the Benazir-Musharraf ‘deal’. About 200 top leaders, ministers, lawmakers and others attended the meeting that lasted till late Saturday night. Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and railways minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed did not attend the meeting. The CWC rejected the abolition of Article 58 (2b), the restriction on the Prime Minister serving a third time, and the suspension of the local government system before the elections. “These three issues are trump cards and the government must not give them up,” was the refrain in speeches by most members. Several speakers threatened to resign if Musharraf went ahead with the deal and vowed not to vote for the amendments being thrashed out in the deal. It’s getting ‘tough’ for Pervez Railway minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad has said it is increasingly becoming difficult to elect President Pervez Musharraf from present assemblies following unanimous rejection of the deal by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. Rashid told TV channel Geo that without the support of the PPP, it was impossible to pass any constitutional amendment to remove impediments in the eligibility of the President to contest election. He said this situation would deepen the crisis and predicted that the assemblies might be dissolved if Musharraf was not elected by them.
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Ultra behind deadliest Iraq attack killed Baghdad, September 9 “On September 3, a coalition air strike killed the terrorist responsible for the planning and conducting of the horrific attack against the Yazidis in northern Iraq on August 14,” Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters. Abu Mohammed al-Afri, also known as Abu Jassam, was killed in the air strike 70 miles southwest of the northern city of Mosul, Fox said. Fox said Abu Jassam was an accomplice of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of the Al-Qaida in Iraq, the local affiliate of Osama bin Laden’s global jihadist group. — AFP
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No APEC membership for India till 2010
Melbourne, September 9 The APEC leaders agreed to look at the membership issue in 2010, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said at the end of the club's annual summit in Sydney. Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mitsuo Sakaba, however, said the leaders were undecided between a three-year and five-year extension of a moratorium preventing new members joining the group.But the Australian leader, the host of the summit, said the three years' time frame was agreed to by the members. The decision means India will have to wait until at least 2010, when Japan hosts the meeting, to see if it can join the Asia-Pacific club. India is among 11 countries seeking membership of the group. Aside from India, other potential APEC candidates include Colombia, Ecuador, Macau, Mongolia, Pakistan, Panama, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Viewing India as an emerging "great power", leaders from the USA, Australia and Japan during their security dialogue yesterday on the sidelines of the APEC summit had expressed keenness to strengthen ties with New Delhi. APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the USA and Vietnam.
— PTI
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B’desh lifts ban on indoor politics
Dhaka, September 9 “I declare that the government will lift the restrictions on indoor politics from tomorrow to create a proper atmosphere for the talks,” chief adviser of the interim government Fakhruddin Ahmed said in a nationwide televised address this evening. Pledging to hold the general elections by December 2008, Ahmed said the government would amend election laws and rules after talks with the commission. “I would like to assure you in unequivocal voice that we are pledge-bound to carry out our responsibilities in appropriate manner until the election to be held within the deadline of December 2008 as announced earlier.”
— PTI
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