Asif acceptable if strips powers: Nawaz

LAHORE - Quaid Pakistan Muslim League-N Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has said he is ready to accept PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari as President if he sheds Presidential powers to dissolve the Parliament.

Taking a tough stand, Nawaz also cut short by two days the Wednesday-deadline for the reinstatement of the deposed judges, and linked the issue to his party’s support to Zardari’s candidature for President’s office after the former won the unanimous backing of lawmakers from the PPP on Friday, and his party announced his candidature on Saturday.

‘We have asked the PPP to inform us by Saturday night whether the judges will be reinstated by Monday or not, and the N-League will announce its future strategy after the PPP’s response’, he said.

‘I have no objection to Zardari contesting the Presidential elections, if he abolishes the 17th Amendment’, Nawaz told reporters at his residence after meeting a 4-member PPP delegation, led by Senator Raza Rabbani. Other members included Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Sherry Rehman and Federal Minister Labour and Manpower Syed Khurshid Shah. They met Nawaz Sharif at the Raiwind residence to seek his support for Zardari’s candidature.

Nawaz said he had a written agreement with Zardari for the reinstatement of judges sacked by Musharraf on November 3 last year after emergency was imposed in the country, and clarified that neither he nor anyone from his N-League wanted to become President.

‘The agreement says that the next President will be nominated after removing the 17th Amendment. The PPP will have the right to nominate its own President then’, he said ,adding, that Zardari had also agreed that the deposed judges would be reinstated within 24 hours of Musharraf’s impeachment or resignation.