Former Pakistan PM refuses to meet Zardari for 'photo session'

President Asif Ali Zardari, under immense political pressure at home, has sent at least three messages to PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif for a summit meeting but the invitations have been declined because, according to a top PML-N leader “We do not want any more photo sessions in the Presidency.”

According to credible sources, the three messages were sent through different emissaries, political and non-political, in the last five days.

A PML-N leader told media on Saturday that his party’s top leadership did not want any more photo sessions and that any meeting between the top leadership of the two major parties could only take place once the promises made to the nation were fulfilled, and a very clear agenda, including repealing the 17th Amendment strictly in accordance with the Charter of Democracy, was formulated.

Sources said that an adviser to the Punjab chief minister, who formerly was a senior bureaucrat, met PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday, carrying a message from Interior Ministry Czar Rehman Malik that an immediate meeting should be arranged between President Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.

Rehman gave the message to the former bureaucrat during a meeting in Islamabad some days ago and it was conveyed to the PML-N chief on Wednesday.

Yet another message was conveyed late Tuesday night during a telephone call to the PML-N chief by a fabulously rich town developer, having excellent relations with the top PPP leadership. This top town developer of the country conveyed President Zardari’s message that the president wanted an immediate meeting in the developing scenario and a worsening situation and wanted to talk on “every issue” now.

According to sources, this town developer contacted the PML-N chief after many months as his last talk with Sharif was on August 7, 2008, when he played the role of a guarantor.

A source, privy to the information, said the PML-N chief complained to the town developer and asked him where he had disappeared for five long months after giving guarantees. “Mian Nawaz Sharif asked him about the promises of August 7 and questioned why should he be trusted now. What is the need now for more meetings for negotiating the same issues?”

The messenger, however, tried to reassure the PML-N chief that now the ‘promises’ will be fulfilled.