Musharraf rejects 'ultimatum' for Bhutto deal

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday rejected pressure from former premier Benazir Bhutto to make a snap decision on a power-sharing deal that would see him quit as army chief.

Bhutto said she needed to know by the weekend if key US ally Musharraf, who is under fierce pressure to give up his military role, would agree to a pact that would also allow her to return from self-imposed exile.

"While the president believes in dialogue and deliberations on all important issues, he never works under any pressure or ultimatum," Musharraf's spokesman, retired Major General Rashid Qureshi, said in a statement.

"The president would take all decisions only in national interest at appropriate times according to the constitution and law," he said in the first official reaction from Musharraf's camp on the power-sharing talks in London.

The sticking point between Bhutto and Musharraf's representatives has been whether the president will shed his uniform before he stands for re-election by parliament in September or October, political sources said.

A further issue is the demand by Bhutto, whose Pakistan People's Party is the country's largest, that the president give up the power to dissolve the lower house of parliament, they said.

Bhutto said in a series of interviews that most issues had been resolved with Musharraf, who has kept his army position since seizing power in the Islamic republic of 160 million people in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Bhutto told Britain's Guardian newspaper Thursday that Musharraf had also agreed to drop corruption charges against her, her husband and dozens of other lawmakers in a general amnesty covering the period from 1988 to 1999.

"A lot of progress has been made, particularly on the uniform. But it's for the president to make an announcement," she said.

She said he had until Friday to respond, noting: "There are no ultimatums, but we need to know where we stand by then."

Bhutto, a two-time premier from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, said she may now return to Pakistan as early as September. She still faces a raft of corruption charges that have caused her to live abroad.

The negotiations with Bhutto began to cause rifts in the goverment.

Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul-Haq -- the son of General Zia-ul-Haq, the late military dictator who had Bhutto's own father hanged -- said Musharraf should take parliament into his confidence if he wanted it to re-elect him.

"Benazir Bhutto is blackmailing President Musharraf in a bid to come to power through the back door. This will not be allowed," Haq told private Geo television.

But another minister close to Musharraf said Wednesday both sides had agreed on his military role. Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP that only a few points remained to be settled and that the uniform was "no longer an issue."

The president is already under intense pressure over the government's inability to quell extremist violence in tribal districts bordering Afghanistan and attacks in other cities.

He also came off worse in a feud with the head of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, whose suspension triggered a wave of protests across the country that eventually forced his reinstatement.

The violence and political chaos even led Musharraf to consider declaring a state of emergency earlier this month.

Meanwhile another former premier, Nawaz Sharif -- the man Musharraf ousted in 1999 -- has pledged to return to contest general elections due here by early 2008 after winning a court battle against his exile.

Sharif has strongly criticised Bhutto's talks with Musharraf, warning in the Guardian that "if she calls herself a democrat, she can't get into any deal with a military dictator."

Also piling the pressure on the president is the Supreme Court's agreement Wednesday to hear a legal challenge against his role as army chief. The lawsuit was filed by the head of Pakistan's coalition of Islamist parties.