Agence France-Presse,
ISLAMABAD (AFP): Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday resisted pressure from ex-premier Benazir Bhutto to declare whether he will step down as army chief under a possible power-sharing deal.
Bhutto said she needed to know by the weekend if key US ally Musharraf, who is under fierce pressure to give up his military role, would agree to the pact that would also allow her to return from self-imposed exile.
The 54-year-old Bhutto, Pakistan's first female leader, wants Musharraf to quit the military before he stands for re-election for another five-year term by parliament in September or October.
“On the uniform issue, the president will take a decision on the basis of law — there is no decision yet,” Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani told reporters in Islamabad after meeting Musharraf.
A further sticking point is the demand by Bhutto, whose Pakistan People's Party is the country's largest, that the president give up the power to dissolve the lower house of parliament, political sources said.
“Dialogue is continuing and there is no final decision yet,” Musharraf's spokesman, retired Major General Rashid Qureshi, told AFP when asked whether the president would agree to Bhutto's terms.
Qureshi said earlier in a statement that Musharraf had rejected calls for him to make a snap decision on the deal, saying that the president “never works under any pressure or ultimatum.”
Bhutto said in a series of interviews that most issues had been resolved with Musharraf, who has kept his army position since seizing power in the Islamic republic of 160 million people in a bloodless coup in 1999.
She told Britain's Guardian newspaper Thursday that Musharraf had also agreed to drop corruption charges against her, her husband and dozens of other lawmakers in a general amnesty covering the period from 1988 to 1999.
“A lot of progress has been made, particularly on the uniform. But it's for the president to make an announcement,” she said.
She said he had until Friday to respond, noting: “There are no ultimatums, but we need to know where we stand by then.”
Bhutto, a two-time premier from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, said she may now return to Pakistan as early as September. She still faces a raft of corruption charges that have caused her to live abroad.
The president's negotiations with Bhutto began to cause rifts in the government.
A minister close to Musharraf said Wednesday both sides had agreed on his military role. Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP that only a few points remained to be settled and that the uniform was “no longer an issue.”
The president is already under intense pressure over the government's inability to quell extremist violence in tribal districts bordering Afghanistan and attacks in other cities.
He also came off worse in a feud with the head of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, whose suspension triggered a wave of protests across the country that eventually forced his reinstatement.
The violence and political chaos even led Musharraf to consider declaring a state of emergency earlier this month.
Meanwhile another former premier, Nawaz Sharif — the man Musharraf ousted in 1999 — has pledged to return to contest general elections due here by early 2008 after winning a court battle against his exile.
Sharif has strongly criticised Bhutto's talks with Musharraf, warning in the Guardian that “if she calls herself a democrat, she can't get into any deal with a military dictator.”
Also piling the pressure on the president is the Supreme Court's agreement Wednesday to hear a legal challenge against his role as army chief. The lawsuit was filed by the head of Pakistan's coalition of Islamist parties.
