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Saudi prince visit to negotiate Musharraf’s safe exit?

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ruling coalition kept up the pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to resign before it moved an impeachment motion against him, while a visit by a senior prince of the Saudi royal family, who is also the kingdom’s intelligence chief, spurred reports that the retired General Musharraf had taken the decision to step down by Sunday.

The President’s spokesman continued to maintain that media reports of his resignation were “all cooked up.” “Not one of these reports is based on any authentic information, with any confirmation from anyone authoritative. Our press dreams up these reports at night and they get them confirmed in the morning from the Information Minister [Sherry Rehman], who is a party to the other side, or they quote unnamed sources,” Major-General (Retd) Rashid Qureshi told The Hindu.

But President Musharraf’s narrowing corner was apparent when the Balochistan Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution similar to the country’s other three provincial Assemblies, asking him to quit or face a vote of confidence.

“President Musharraf has two choices: he must quit or fight the impeachment,” said Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari in an interview to Dawn News TV, which was to be telecast late on Friday.

According to TV reports, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, the head of Saudi intelligence, who played a lead role in preventing Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif’s return in September 2007, was back in Pakistan, this time to negotiate a safe exit for General Musharraf.

He is said to have met the President during his one-day visit. He also met Mr. Sharif in Lahore on Thursday to convince the PML (N) leader to give the embattled General Musharraf “safe exit.”

Aaj TV said one condition of the deal was that General Musharraf would not speak to the media for four months. Mr. Sharif had told supporters on Thursday that General Musharraf would not be allowed to walk away. “There is no safe exit for him,” he said. Party leaders maintained this position on Friday. “The only course of action left for General Musharraf is to immediately resign and surrender himself before the law of the land,” spokesman Ahsan Iqbal told journalists.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman said the coalition had finalised the charge sheet against General Musharraf on Friday. It had been handed over to the Law Ministry for preparation as a legal document, and would be submitted to the coalition leadership on Sunday or Monday for their final approval, she said.

“We plan to move the impeachment resolution in Parliament sometime next week,” she said. But she said the President could exercise his “constitutional right” to resign and she urged him to use this option.

Other reports also circulated during the day, emanating from a meeting said to have taken place between General Musharraf and the PML (Q) leaders, Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Elahi, that the President had no intention of quitting, and a military intervention was likely.

He is said to have told the pair that Mr. Sharif was destabilising the country. It drew an angry response from the PML (N), with Mr. Iqbal lashing out at General Musharraf’s “stubbornness in refusing to let go of his office as the only reason for the crisis in the country.”

Major-General Qureshi denied the meeting took place, but was emphatic that General Musharraf would not quit as he was “was guilty of nothing.” “I think the people have a fair idea that he has done nothing wrong,” he said. He refused to be drawn into a discussion on how General Musharraf intended to fight the impeachment — in Parliament or by using his powers to dissolve the National Assembly — if he was not going to resign.

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