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Islamabad: The Pakistan People's Party stalwart and member of National Assembly Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan said yesterday that Benazir Bhutto was a "genius politician" who knew that a deal with President General Pervez Musharraf would be a high-cost-venture for her party as it would give birth to a severe public criticism.
"President Musharraf does not seem to see the year-end and September will be turbulent for him," Aitzaz told private television news channel ARY in an interview.
He said, "Musharraf will try to hold the presidential election within a short schedule of 10 days."
In reply to a question, Aitzaz said Bhutto had not discussed with him her Abu Dhabi meeting with President Musharraf.
"Musharraf was suffering from 'Nawaz-phobia' and had gone down to requesting Saudi Arabia to stop the Sharif brothers from returning," he claimed.
When asked why he had met Sharif and not Bhutto while in London, he deflected the question by saying Bhutto was busy in talks with the government emissaries and would meet him in the PPP's central committee meeting on August 31.
Meanwhile, sources in the PPP told Gulf News that there is resentment among party stalwarts because Bhutto has once again kept senior leaders in the dark regarding her talks with the special emissary of the president.
Bhutto has been in London since last week meeting various British MPs, as well as the president's emissary Tariq Aziz and the senior military leaders.
They said though all senior party leaders had reached London to attend the joint meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the Federal Council (FC), she had not taken anyone into confidence regarding the talks.
The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chief Benazir Bhutto has charged that elements of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) "continue the alliance with both the Taliban and the Al Qaida to this very day" on the premise that Pakistan's security requires "strategic depth" in the shape of a friendly or pliant Afghanistan.
In an interview with YaleGlobal, a publication of the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation, Bhutto said yesterday that the ISI was continuing to adhere to the old arrangement, "even if it means supporting fanatics".
She said it was not a premise she or her party shared. "We believe it is essential for Pakistan to support democracy in Afghanistan. We want an end to that policy of strategic depth.
"Afghanistan has traditionally been viewed either as a buffer state or as a forward policy state where there is strategic depth ... I think for us it is much better to have an Afghanistan that is peaceful, that allows us to trade with it, that has good relations with all its neighbours," she added.
Asked about the US criticism that President Musharraf was not doing enough to capture the Al Qaida suspects hiding in Pakistan and if it was fair criticism, she replied, "As a Pakistani, it certainly hurts me very much when I see that inevitably the trail of terrorists leads back to my country ... We don't want to make our country hospitable to such elements."
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