950829

Altaf rules out

power-sharing

formula

Altaf alleges

PM trying to

divert from basic issues

LONDON: The leader of MQM Altaf Hussain has sharply reacted to the statement issued by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto while speaking to foreign journalists in Islamabad on Tuesday. Altaf Hussain observed that the statement had been issued by Benazir Bhutto in desperation and with a view to mislead the international public opinion regarding the acute state of anarchy in southern areas of urban Sindh particularly in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Altaf said her main purpose in issuing this statement was to divert Pakistan's and international attention from the talks which held on Tuesday over again in Karachi between the government and MQM negotiators. The purpose of the talks since they officially began was to discuss the 18-point charter of demands of the MQM. However, by alluding to extraneous and irrelevant matters in her statement, Benazir Bhutto has cleverly devised a scheme to raise unconnected issues to divert the channel of relevant thinking to create confusion and misunderstanding.

The MQM chief said the statement issued to the foreign correspondents in Islamabad on Tuesday, she emphasised those matters which have never been raised by the MQM.

Altaf said the negotiations, because of the manifest dilatory tactics of the government negotiating team, have realistically speaking not progressed at all since they officially began on July 11, 1995, he said.

Altaf Hussain emphatically said that power-sharing of local bodies elections have never been the aim of the MQM nor is interested in any such programme with the government. He categorically ruled out any power-sharing formula with the government of Benazir Bhutto, which had unleashed a reign of terror against Mohajir nation by resorting to the worst kind of brutality and genocide of their peoples. As far as local bodies election are concerned, Altaf said their scheduled holding was a constitutional duty of the government in November, 1993.-PPI