Pakistan's Musharraf, Bhutto reach deal By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

Pakistan's Musharraf, Bhutto reach deal By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and former political rival Benazir Bhutto have reached agreement regarding Musharraf's military role, a key step toward a power-sharing agreement, a senior official said Wednesday.

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"Both sides have agreed on the issue of uniform," Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a close Musharraf ally, told reporters. Bhutto was quoted in a British newspaper making a similar comment, though neither she nor Ahmed elaborated.

Envoys for the U.S.-allied military president and former Prime Minister Bhutto, who is planning a return from exile abroad, are trying to work out a pact that would help Musharraf secure another five-year presidential term.

Bhutto and other opposition leaders argue that the constitution obliges Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, to give up his post as military chief before he asks lawmakers for a fresh mandate in September or October.

Musharraf, however, has insisted that the constitution allows him to remain in uniform until the end of 2007 and has left open what will happen after that.

Bhutto was quoted in Wednesday's Daily Telegraph as saying that the "uniform issue is resolved."

"The uniform issue is key and there has been a lot of movement on it in the recent round of talks," Bhutto told the London-based daily.

Both Bhutto and Rashid said the two sides were close to an agreement but that there were still outstanding issues.

Musharraf's future is clouded by a clamor for an end to military rule, fallout from a lost battle against the judiciary and the plans of Nawaz Sharif, another former premier, to also mount a dramatic political comeback.

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party insisted Tuesday that it was not involved in reported talks in London with envoys sent by Musharraf.

Sharif's party and Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party have scheduled crunch meetings in the next few days in London — where the two former premiers have been living — to decide when their leaders will return.

In the past, Musharraf vowed to prevent them from re-entering Pakistan. He blames them for the corruption and economic problems that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s, when Bhutto and Sharif each had two short-lived turns as prime minister.

But with the United States pressing for more democracy and redoubled efforts against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border, Musharraf recently began calling for political reconciliation and an alliance of moderates to defeat extremists.

Musharraf's authority has greatly eroded since March, when he tried unsuccessfully to remove the Supreme Court's top judge. The move triggered protests that snowballed into a broad campaign against Musharraf's rule.

The court reinstated the judge in July, raising expectations that it also will uphold legal challenges to Musharraf's re-election plan likely to be filed by Sharif as well as religious parties opposed to Pakistan's close alliance with Washington.

Last week, the court ruled that Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf toppled in 1999, can come home, despite a promise in 2000 that he would stay away for a decade in return for his release from jail.