Sharif threat exposes cracks in Pak alliance

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has threatened to act against any move to include Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Pakistan's new coalition government citing the party's close association with President Pervez Musharraf.

"We, as well as those Urdu-speaking people who are not part of the MQM, have reservations over the MQM's inclusion in the coalition government because we know who was behind the May 12 carnage in Karachi (last year) that left 48 people dead," PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif told media persons in Mansehra on Monday.

Sharif was referring to riots that erupted in the southern port city of Karachi last year when former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was scheduled to address lawyers as part of his campaign against President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to sack him.

The MQM led by Altaf Hussian which controlled Karachi's city government was widely blamed for the violence.

The PML-N will accept talks between the PPP and the MQM for the formation of a government in Sindh province but it will 'evolve its own course of action if any effort is made to finalise any power-sharing formula for the Centre', said PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

Reports about the MQM's inclusion in the new coalition government led by the PPP were sparked by the MQM's decision to withdraw its candidate in the elections for the post of the prime minister at the request of PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.

In the 342-member National Assembly, PPP has 120 seats, PML (N) 90 and MQM 25. In the 168-member Sindh assembly, PPP has 89 seats and MQM 51.

Sharif said, "We want the report of the May 12 carnage to be made public. If we don't make the report public and fail to expose the hands behind the incident, the coming generations will never forgive us."

Senior PML-N leaders have also expressed reservations about the MQM's association with Musharraf as the party had backed the President and the previous PML-Q government.

"We have reservations about those who worked with a military dictator for eight years and were behind the May 12 violence. But we will not come in the way of the unconditional support that they are giving to the PPP," said Nisar Ali Khan.

MQM deputy convener Farooq Sattar said his party had not received a formal offer from the PPP to join the coalition government, but is ready to consider such a proposal.

The MQM had offered unconditional support to the PPP, which had to decide whether it wanted the party in the government or as part of the opposition, from where it could support constructive policies, Sattar said.