Islamabad, July 13: Pakistan's Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali today met key opposition leaders belonging to the six-party religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in a bid to resume dialogue over constitutional changes, state media reported. The Prime Minister went to the residences of MMA secretary general Maulana Fazalur Rehman and leader of right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a report by state-run Pakistan Television said.
"We will continue dialogue with opposition and both sides have demonstrated sincerity to resolve differences," PTV quoted Jamali as saying.
"We want to strengthen the democratic system," Rehman told PTV.
A loose alliance of secular and islamic opposition parties are waging a bitter campaign to force Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to surrender self-appointed power and his simultaneous post as army chief.
Recent government-opposition negotiations ground to a halt after a deadlock on key clauses of the Legal Framework Order (LFO) through which Musharraf rewrote the constitution before October elections restored the parliament.
Most sessions of the 342-seat parliament, in which the pro-Musharraf coalition holds a slender majority, have descended into theatrics of shouts, slow chants, desk-slapping and foot-stomping by opposition MPs, forcing countless sessions to be abandoned.
The budget was only tabled on June 7 over a din of cantankerous opposition protests.
Bureau Report