Islamabad: Former miltiary ruler Pervez Musharraf offered the olive branch to his arch foe, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in an interview to a Paksitani private television channel which was to be aired last night.
Musharraf, currently living abroad in self-imposed exile, said he wanted to make amends with Nawaz Sharif, who he toppled in October 1999 in a miltiary coup and then banished to Saudi Arabia for a decade along with younger brother Shahbaz and their family members.
But reconciliation was not a one-way street, said the former soldier, who was interviewed by the channel in Dubai.
Demand for trial
The Sharifs and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), the main opposition party in the federal parliament and power holder in the country's most populous Punjab province, have been consistently demanding Musharraf's trial for treason.
The PML-N blames the ruling Pakistan People's Party leadership for giving a honourable send-off to Musharraf when he stepped down under pressure in 2008 and allowing him safe exit from the country.
In the interview, Musharraf defended his acts on October 12, 1999 and November 3, 2007. The channel quoted the former dictator as saying he was not ashamed of his actions.
Return to Pakistan
His associates in the party Musharraf launched from London in October last year said in Lahore on Friday that the leader of the All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) would return to Pakistan by the end of the current year.
They dismissed any threat to Musharraf from arrest warrant issued this year against him by a Pakistani court in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case.
APML spokesman Fawad Chaduhry told the media that Musharraf has not come back soon to avoid likely accusations of destabilising the fragile democracy system, restored in the country with general election in February 2008.
