President contacts exiled Benazir

Pakistan's military government contacted former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in exile in Dubai, for the first time yesterday to discuss current tensions with India, her party said.

A Pakistan People's Party (PPP) statement said Pakistan's consul-general in Dubai, Amanullah Larik, met Bhutto yesterday morning and delivered a message from President Pervez Musharraf's government.

"This was the first contact between the military regime and the Pakistan People's Party chief," it said of the message, sent by Musharraf through the army general headquarters.

The message invited PPP to attend, "in the national interest", a meeting with politicians set for yesterday.

The statement quoted party vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim as saying the party decided to attend, but he could not make it to Islamabad because there was no flight available from Karachi.

Bhutto has lived abroad in self-imposed exile since early 1999 for fear of being arrested if she returns home.

Musharraf, who seized power in an October 1999 military coup, has said Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom he toppled, would have no future political role because of alleged corruption.

Musharraf has met Fahim and leaders of other political parties in the past, but has refrained from contacting Bhutto and Sharif, whom he sent into a 10-year exile to Saudi Arabia a year ago.

The PPP statement quoted Bhutto as telling Larik in Dubai that her party "appreciated the initiative taken by General Musharraf to contact it on a party basis" and that "national reconciliation was important to the internal stability of the country".

Musharraf has promised to hold national elections by October next year in line with a deadline set by Pakistan's Supreme Court, but says he would retain the presidency that he assumed after removing a civilian incumbent earlier this year.

However, the PPP and most other major political parties want him to hand over to an interim government that should supervise the elections.