Fazlur Rehman conveys truce offer to Nawaz Sharif

Rapprochement needed in the face of internal, external threats.

ISLAMABAD:

In yet another attempt to rein in PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, the military establishment is learnt to have used one of its political confidants, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, to convey a message of reconciliation.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), held a meeting with Nawaz Sharif on Friday apparently to discuss the prospects of a proposed multiparty conference on Kashmir, but he was also said to be carrying a truce message from the military.

“There was no threat, but once again there was a message…of reconciliation” sources in the PML-N said on condition of anonymity. The PML-N, previously considered to be a pro-establishment party, has recently adopted an aggressive posture against policies of the country’s powerful military establishment.

The military top brass has been trying to woo back Nawaz, using direct and indirect channels to convey that at a time when the country is facing serious internal and external threats, any confrontation between different stakeholders would not augur well.

Earlier, messages of rapprochement were conveyed to Nawaz through some of his party leaders and some common friends inside and outside the country, sources claimed.

Since the May 2 US incursion in Abbottabad in which al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed, the PML-N has been castigating the military establishment, which intensified after the attack on PNS Mehran in Karachi.

The military’s media wing, ISPR, issued a statement after the last corps commanders’ conference, saying that a propaganda campaign had been launched against them. It did not specify any particular political party or group, but the PML-N considered the barb was directed against it.

There are some within the PML-N’s own ranks who are not in favour of taking this acrimony to the point of no return, but a strong group, led by Nawaz himself, wants to create a new public image, getting rid of the perception that it was anything but pro-establishment.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose party quit the government in the centre a few months ago but who continues to head parliament’s Kashmir committee with the status of a federal minister, also held a meeting with President Ali Zardari on Thursday and is expected to meet other political leaders for his APC on Kashmir.

The idea of holding an APC on Kashmir issue at this time is being considered an attempt to bring together otherwise disaparare political groups on a common platform to address the problems in the country.

Sources privy to the meeting between Nawaz and Fazl, which lasted more than an hour, said that when Nawaz conveyed his displeasure over the JUI-F stance over his party’s demand for an independent commission to probe the Abbottabad incident, Maulana Fazl explained that his stance had been taken out of context.

The meeting was said to have been held in a strained environment and the two political leaders are learnt to have discussed the issue of the leader of opposition in the Senate. Both sides remained adamant over their respective stances, sources said.







Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2011.