Sharif,Imran team up against Musharraf

BRITAIN: Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and cricketer-turned-opposition politician Imran Khan announced they are teaming up to seek an end to President Pervez Musharraf’s “dictatorship.”

Speaking at a joint press conference in London, they said they will hold a conference for opposition parties in the British capital on July 7-8 to which another ex-premier, Benazir Bhutto, will be invited.

“We will work together and not just against this dictatorship, but even after .... because our objectives are the same,” said Khan.

He added that Bhutto was showing “hesitation” about joining the opposition coalition and called on all parties to join “this fight for general democratic system.”

Sharif, who lives in exile in London, later told AFP that he had signed a “charter of democracy” with Bhutto which spoke of “cutting no deals with army dicators.”

“I stand by that charter of democracy... I expect Benazir Bhutto also to stick by it,” he said.

Asked whether she had violated its terms, he said: “I wouldn’t say that she violated it, but she has been saying, I heard her say on the television, that ‘we are in contact with the government’.”

He said that he hoped the conference in July would unite opposition groups into a coherent group.

“I think this is (a) mockery of democracy and we have become a laughing stock before the international community,” he added, but would not specify when he planned to return to Pakistan.

Khan, leader of the Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice) party, told AFP that the coalition would brook “no compromise with a military dictator” and said that he was not in touch with the army.

“We also believe that we should only want free and fair elections and we don’t want any deals with him and so he’s clear and we’re clear and we’re going to go in the movement and afterwards also we’ll be together,” he added.

During his stay in London, Khan is due to meet British politicians including David Cameron, the leader of the main opposition Conservative Party — one of whose closest advisors is the brother of his ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith.

Khan said he also wanted to use his visit to London to ask lawmakers why Altaf Hussain, head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), had been given British citizenship.

Khan has accused him of causing riots in Karachi in May which left 42 people dead. MQM party members have campaigned against Khan, burning effigies, and he has been banned from entering Karachi, an MQM stronghold.

London, Wednesday, AFP