Sharif returns to discuss judges' issue with PPP

Islamabad: Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif has returned home after three weeks' stay in London, saying time has come for a final word with the Pakistan Peoples Party on key issues.

The former prime minister told reporters on arrival in Lahore late on Tuesday that he would meet PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari after discussing the situation with PML-N central executive committee.

Sharif, who did not indicate a date for the meeting, said the PPP-led coalition must honour the mandate given by the people in the general election in February.

The PML-N is pressing the PPP to agree to reinstate, through an executive order backed by a National Assembly resolution, the dozens of judges President Pervez Musharraf deposed last year to save his controversial re-election.

The former premier's party also wants the PPP not to delay initiation of proceedings in the parliament to impeach Musharraf, whom the PML-N accuses of conspiring against the coalition. Sharif said he had written a letter to the PPP co-chairman about the two main issues but he had not received a reply.

He said when he meets Zardari he would ask him why there was a delay in restoring the judiciary to its position before November 3, 2007 when Mushrraf as then army chief imposed emergency rule.

The PML-N leader reiterated his party's support to the lawyers' movement for the restoration of the judges. A national convention of representatives of bar associations of the country earlier this month gave August 14 deadline to the government for reinstating the judges.

In March, Zardari made a joint declaration with Sharif to restore the judges through a parliamentary resolution and executive order within 30 days of formation of the government.

Later the PPP leadership discarded the agreed modality and took the position that the judges' reinstatement would be done as part of a package of amendments to the constitution.