Bhutto defies ban, vows to return to Pak before polls

Vowing to defy President Pervez Musharraf’s ban on her return to Pakistan before the elections, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said the General has no option but to go for a “political compromise”...

Vowing to defy President Pervez Musharraf’s ban on her return to Pakistan before the elections, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said the General has no option but to go for a “political compromise”.

“No matter what, I’m going back this year,” Bhutto, now in exile in Dubai, was quoted as saying just hours after Musharraf insisted that she and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif would not be allowed to come back for the year-end elections.

Claiming that the only option for Musharraf was to seek a political solution in the wake of the spiralling judicial crisis, the Pakistan People’s Party leader said she was now thinking of going back earlier. “The only option is for Gen Musharraf and his regime to seek a political solution through a negotiated transfer of power,” the 53-year-old leader told The Sunday Telegraph.

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“I think the (Musharraf) regime still has initiative in its hands, but it needs to take certain political steps and be ready to make political compromises,” she said in another interview to Voice of America.

Bhutto claimed that Musharraf, 63, who came to power in 1999 after ousting Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup, had lost the confidence of his fellow army officers, whose backing is considered essential for any Pakistani leader.

“It is best for the regime to call a round-table conference of all political leaders, including the exiled prime ministers, to evolve a consensus for transparent elections,”

she said.Both Bhutto and Sharif, who have ruled Pakistan twice as prime minister, have asserted that they would defy Musharraf and return home.

Pak minister quits over fatwa

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Islamabad: Pakistan’s Tourism Minister Nilofer Bakhtiar has resigned from the Tourism Ministry, sources said on Sunday.

Bakhtiar, who had not been attending the office for some time now, sent her resignation to PM Shaukat Aziz before he embarked on a foreign tour three days back.

Her resignation came after she quit as the president of the ruling PML-Q women’s wing, which was accepted by the party chief Shujaat Hussain.”Bakhtiar felt let down after she was asked to step down as Chairperson of Women’s Wing of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q two months back,” The News quoted an official as saying while confirming her

resignation.