Musharraf and Bhutto agree on military role

Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and former rival Benazir Bhutto have reached an agreement regarding Musharraf's military role, a key step toward a power-sharing agreement, a senior official said today.

"Both sides have agreed on the issue of uniform," Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a close ally of the military president, told reporters.

Bhutto was also quoted as making a similar comment, though neither she nor Ahmed said explicitly Musharraf had agreed to her demand that he step down as army chief.

Envoys for the US-allied president are trying to work out a pact with Bhutto, an exiled former prime minister, that would rescue his bid for another five-year presidential term.

Bhutto and other opposition leaders argue that the constitution obliges Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, to give up his post as military chief before he asks politicians for a fresh mandate in September or October.

However, Musharraf has insisted that the constitution allows him to remain in uniform until the end of 2007 and has left open what will happen after that.

Bhutto was quoted in today's Daily Telegraph as saying that the "uniform issue is resolved".

"The uniform issue is key and there has been a lot of movement on it in the recent round of talks," Bhutto said.

Both Bhutto and Ahmed said the two sides were close to an agreement, but that there were still outstanding issues.

Musharraf has seen his authority erode since March, when he tried unsuccessfully to remove the Supreme Court's top judge. The move triggered protests that snowballed into a broad campaign against his continued rule.

The court reinstated the judge in July, raising expectations that it will uphold legal challenges to Musharraf's re-election. The court today admitted a petition filed by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, head of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, against Musharraf's dual role as president and military chief.

Last week, the court ruled that Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister toppled in 1999 who is also living in exile, can return to Pakistan ahead of parliamentary elections due by January.

Sharif quickly denounced Musharraf as a dictator who must be removed from the political scene. His supporters say he will make a triumphant return before the presidential vote - despite government threats to arrest him on charges dating back to the coup.

That prospect has added to the urgency of an accommodation between Musharraf and Bhutto, who share a relatively liberal, pro-Western outlook and stress the need to prevent the political crisis from destabilising the nuclear-armed nation.

Musharraf vowed in the past to prevent either former leader from re-entering Pakistan. He blames them for the corruption and economic problems that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s, when Bhutto and Sharif each had two short-lived turns as prime minister.

But with the United States pressing for more democracy as well as redoubled effort against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border, the general recently began calling for political reconciliation and an alliance of moderates to defeat extremists.