Sharifs will have to honour deal, says Shujaat

Islamabad: President of the ruling PML (Q) party Chaudary Shujaat Hussain said on Friday that it is not that easy for the exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif to land in Pakistan on September 10, as they have announced in London.

Talking to the journalists here, Shujaat said that they had signed a deal to leave the country with Musharraf government and there are some "most respectable guarantors" who are involved in the deal, so Sharifs will have to honour the deal and the guarantors.

"If everything is okay according to Nawaz Sharif, then he should first go to Saudi Arabia to perform Umera and then come back to Pakistan," Shujaat said.

Pakistan's political pundits are unanimous in their opinion that Sharifs this time may also face the same treatment which was accorded to Shahbaz Sharif in 2004 when he tried to land in Lahore but his plane was re-directed to Jeddah by the government.

Confrontation

"The government appears to be confident that they will repeat their action successfully this time again and the Sharifs will be sent back to Saudi Arabia where they will have to complete their agreed period of exile," the analysts say.

"Sharif brothers should have calculated this option before deciding the date of return but they are still tight-lipped about the Saudi guarantor and every time they are asked any question regarding Saudi connection, they deflect or refuse to answer. It creates doubts in the minds of their sympathisers," said Tanveerul Islam, a professor and political analyst.

"The confidence in the government camp shows that the 'most respected guarantors' have assured them that Sharifs would not return on September 10," he added.

Meanwhile quoting its sources, private television news network Geo news said that the presidency had contacted these " most respected guarantors" and asked them to stop the Sharif brothers from returning to Pakistan because the government was not in a position to stop them through any constitutional amendment and it also did not want any confrontation with the Supreme Court.