“Saudi Arabia has already told Nawaz Sharif that he can go back to his country whenever he likes. We are working out the modalities so that he can return in November,” said PML-N acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi.

Hashmi’s assertion came a day after President Pervez Musharraf told a meeting of top leaders of the ruling PML-Q and its allies that Sharif would not return to Pakistan from exile before the general election, which is due by mid-January.

Sharif was arrested and deported to Saudia Arabia barely four hours after he returned to Pakistan on September 10. The former premier, who signed an agreement to go into exile in Saudi Arabia for 10 years in exchange for the dropping of his jail terms, had come back after Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled he was free to return.
A bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is currently hearing a contempt of court petition challenging Sharif’s deportation.

General’s worries
Musharraf is keen that Sharif should not return to Pakistan before the general election as this may upset negotiations between him and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to reach a possible power-sharing arrangement, political observers said.

In the past few weeks, Sharif has repeatedly said he intends to return to Pakistan ahead of the polls to lead his party.

Hashmi said Sharif was in possession of travel documents and the Saudi government had no objections to his travelling abroad.
He also admitted that the PML-N would be “handicapped” in the election campaign if its top leaders like Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif were outside the country.

Hashmi, who met Pakistan People’s Party chief Bhutto in Karachi on Thursday, said he had discussed with her various political issues, including the movement to restore democracy.
He also said the PML-N was keen on the revival of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy. “We should work together as the military regime is still there,” he said.

Hashmi opposed amnesty to politicians in graft cases. “We never supported it or wanted it. We have challenged it in the Supreme Court,” he said.