Pakistan's Leaders Hold Last Ditch Talks to Break Deadlock Over Top Judges
By VOA News
30 April 2008
Pakistani leaders are holding a final round of talks Wednesday on stalled plans to reinstate deposed judges, in a dispute that is threatening the coalition government.
Asif Ali Zardari and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are meeting in Dubai to work out disagreements on how to reinstate judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf. The talks are a last-ditch effort in hopes of salvaging a mutual promise to reinstate the judges before an April 30 deadline.
Zardari's Pakistan People's Party wants to link reinstatement to constitutional reforms, among them, narrowing the powers of top judges, including chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
But Mr. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party wants the judges reinstated unconditionally. He warned Tuesday the fate of the coalition could depend on this issue.
A senior official, Sadiqul Farooq, from Mr. Sharif's PML-N party says the party may pull its ministers from the cabinet if the judges are not reinstated on time. However, he said the party will remain in the coalition.
Recent talks between representatives of both sides in the Gulf emirate, where Zardari is visiting his children, have failed.
Last November, President Musharraf dismissed roughly 60 of Pakistan's high court judges during a state of emergency.
But Mr. Musharraf's former ruling Pakistan Muslim League party came in a distant third in February's parliamentary elections, and the new coalition government vowed to reinstate the judges within 30 days of taking office.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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