Musharraf soon to return in country: Afghan

CHAKWAL (SANA): Former law minister Dr Sher Afghan Khan Niazi has said that former President Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf will soon return in the country.
He said it is the wrong understanding of PPP and PML-N that former President Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf will not return in Pakistan.
This he said while in a telephonic talk with the representatives of Chakwal Press Club, adding that Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan’s statement that Pervez Musharraf is a coward man and will never returned to Pakistan is like a buttering of President Asif Ali Zardari for grabbing of some big post in the government.
Sher Afghan Niazi said that Pervez Musharraf have become a monster for PPP and PML-N.
He said Pervez Musharraf had given the right of appointments in the higher judiciary to the Chief Justice of Pakistan through 17th amendment but present government through 18th amendment included the government involvement in the appointments of the judges’ in higher judiciary, which shows that the Musharraf era was better than present government ear.
He said that Musharraf is pioneer of electronic media in Pakistan, adding that today media is big power in Pakistan which is the result of Musharraf’s polices.
Afghan further said that instantly after the registration of All Pakistan Muslim League, the schedule for the Musharraf return will be announced.
He said there is no hurdle in the return of Musharraf, adding that Musharraf is ready to tackle every kind of situation after his return to Pakistan.
He said that strong leadership could bring out the country out of this present situation.

Madhuri Gupta claims she is being framed

Madhuri Gupta, a junior Indian official arrested on the charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), told a court here on Saturday that she was being framed.

According to a police official,  Madhuri Gupta, 53, said she was not a senior officer and could not have passed on sensitive information to her contacts in Pakistan where she was posted in the Indian High Commission. Madhuri, who had been in police custody for five days, also said she had revealed the identities of Indian undercover agents in Pakistan. According to court sources, the police wanted to extend her remand for two more days as they claimed she was changing her statements time and again in order to mislead them. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja refused to grant  this demand and remanded her  to 14-day judicial custody. The officer, a specialist interpreter in Urdu, was posted in the media and information wing of the high commission. She came under the scanner after she showed “extraordinary” interest in areas beyond her role in the information wing of the mission. Central security agencies then involved senior MEA officials by briefing them about her activities in Pakistan, which included supplying of sensitive and classified documents related to Indian activities in that country and Afghanistan. A promotee officer of Ministry of External Affairs, Gupta has worked in the mission for nearly three years. The Special Branch of Delhi Police will charge Gupta with offence under the Official Secrets Act of 1923. The Act says that any person charged with disclosing information that is likely to affect the security of the State is punishable by law. Gupta, a second secretary at the Indian mission in Islamabad, was arrested here on April 27.

India keen to engage ‘empowered' Gilani

APPrime Minister Manmohan Singh with his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani during a meeting on the sidelines of the 16th SAARC summit in Thimphu. File Photo: 

 

After Thimphu, trust building key to emerging dialogue template

The recent empowerment of Pakistani prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and his favourable disposition towards peace were important factors in India’s willingness to put the dialogue process back on track.

Providing the first detailed account of the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan and Mr. Gilani in Thimphu on April 28, senior officials said the question of ‘who India should talk to’ had been answered by the 18th amendment to the Pakistani constitution which enhanced the authority of the prime minister.

But personal equations between the two principals also mattered. “They do manage to communicate well with one another”, an official said. “There is a certain chemistry”. Last year, when Dr. Singh was under fire following the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Mr. Gilani batted for him by telling reporters that what the Prime Minister had said in Parliament about the controversial joint statement ‘is what we agreed’. Dr. Singh had put an Indian spin on the terror-dialogue delinking issue but the Pakistani PM chose not to score points. “We remember that”, an Indian official told The Hindu. “He seems to be favourably disposed towards peace”.

India is prepared to move ahead on the basis of Mr. Gilani’s latest assurances because the 18th amendment had legally empowered him, the sources said. “In fact, Gilani told us, ‘I’ve come with the authority. I have the support of everyone’.” The sources also appreciated the fact that his statements on India had always been relatively restrained. “Until you show him a door, he has no incentive to start doing anything [about our concerns]. And you give your enemies the chance to say, ‘Look, India is not prepared to budge even a bit’.” Why should we allow them to fuse all Pakistanis behind them, the officials asked.

The sources said India and Pakistan came to Thimphu with constraints but agreed to lower the pitch. “We have opened the door to dialogue. The purpose is to restore trust. That’s what the foreign ministers and foreign secretaries have been tasked to do … This is not a dialogue to solve all issues immediately but to restore trust”.

The officials said Dr. Singh made it clear it is terrorism from Pakistan which has been preventing dialogue. “One of the most important things to restore trust is credible action by Pakistan”. Trust was a dynamic process, the sources said, adding that the “best scenario” would be one where the 26/11 trial ends soon with convictions, Pakistan takes “credible action” against terrorist groups and the dialogue moves alongside. “We had two choices at Thimphu. First, to have ‘talks about talks’. This was the weasel option, of endless arguments about terrorism lists, Kashmir, water etc. The second was to recognise that if the problem is lack of trust, let’s make trust the issue. It opens [things] up”.

Asked if this was a new template, the officials said, “I don’t think you can give it a name. The advantage of this is that it is open. It has potential”.

The one-on-one meeting between the two prime ministers was about clearing the air, the sources said, and not a ‘negotiations meeting’. Mr. Gilani spoke about the problems Pakistan was facing in dealing with terrorism. Dr. Singh replied that the slow pace of the 26/11 trial and the threats being issued by Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed were a source of frustration for India. Mr. Gilani said he understood India’s concerns and that his government would find a legal way to address them