Islamabad: The alliance forged recently between former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to "defeat the military regime" in Pakistan appears to have run into trouble over Bhutto's acknowledged contacts with President Pervez Musharraf.
Ahead of the October 19 meeting in London between the two former arch rivals who live in exile abroad, Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said it could be their "last meeting" if differences were not resolved.
"The October 19 meeting between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif is very important. I think, it will be the last meeting between the two if differences persist even after the talks," PML-N Chairman and Sharif's close confidant Raja Zafarul Haq told media in Islamabad on Thursday.
Even though Haq did not outline the "differences", PML-N leaders have been saying the continued "backchannel" contacts between Musharraf's confidants and Bhutto even after she signed a charter of democracy with Sharif few months ago cannot go together.
While the media in Islamabad has periodically reported of such contacts, Bhutto herself recently acknowledged the backchannel talks but reiterated there was no change in her stand that Musharraf should quit the post of army chief and hold free and fair polls.
Without naming anyone, Haq said, "some parties which tried to make a deal with the Musharraf regime are now disappointed".
He made the remarks at a function organised in Islamabad on Thursday in connection with "black day" observed by PML-N on the anniversary of the 1999 military takeover.
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