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Ambassador alive but not traced yet, says Pakistan

Islamabad: Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin, who went missing two days ago while driving to Kabul through the lawless Khyber Agency, is alive though security forces have not yet been able to locate him, said a spokesman on Wednesday.

“I am sure that he [Mr. Azizuddin] is alive,” said Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq. Pakistani authorities are making all efforts to trace the envoy but had not yet uncovered any clue as to his whereabouts, he said.

President Pervez Musharraf had issued instructions to redouble efforts to trace him, Mr. Sadiq told a weekly news briefing. Mr. Azizuddin went missing on Monday with his driver and a guard while driving from Peshawar to Kabul. He is believed to have been kidnapped by militants in the Khyber Agency.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the militant coalition led by commander Baitullah Mehsud, has denied reports of its involvement in the kidnapping. The spokesman told reporters in Peshawar that the Pakistani Taliban had announced an unofficial ceasefire and stopped attacks on government officials or installations.

A TV channel had reported on Tuesday that the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility for “abducting” Mr. Azizuddin and expressed their willingness to release him in exchange for Taliban commander Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, who was captured by security forces after a gun battle in Balochistan.

Meanwhile, husband of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto left the door open on Wednesday for post-election power-sharing with rivals, including allies of General (retd.) Musharraf.

Against a backdrop of fresh violence that left two persons dead as they campaigned for Monday’s vote, Asif Ali Zardari told AFP that if his party won he would form a “government of national consensus” to unify Pakistan.

He said he would work with the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, but did not rule out cooperating with the former ruling party that backs Gen. Musharraf.

“I think a dilemma that the military government has put Pakistan in today leaves us no choice but to try and get together with all the political forces,” Mr. Zardari told AFP at his home in the eastern city of Lahore. “I have already taken a position politically that we shall make a government of national consensus with everybody,” said Mr. Zardari, who is leading Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party until their son Bilawal completes his education.

“There is no other way to get the nation together but in the grief and in unity to face the problems that we are facing today,” he added.

Benazir was assassinated in a suicide and gun attack as she left an election rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on December 27, causing elections to be postponed by six weeks.

Mr. Zardari held talks with Mr. Sharif on Tuesday night at which the two leaders said they had discussed a possible coalition, after surveys showed both of their parties were ahead of Gen. Musharraf’s grouping.

A spokesman for Mr. Sharif’s party said earlier there were “several issues on which both sides have agreement and there are a number of issues on which both sides can work together in a post-election scenario.”

In northwestern Pakistan, a roadside bomb hit the convoy of a hardline Islamist candidate for the elections as he left an election rally, police said.

The blast in the troubled Swat Valley killed two persons and wounded two others, police said. — Agencies

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