‘Nawaz’s politics underwritten with help of establishment’

LAHORE: PPP-P head Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday said his party was ready for the setting up of a truth and reconciliation commission provided the process began from Gen Ziaul Haq.

Addressing an Iftar reception hosted by President PPP Lahore Haji Aziz-ur-Rehman Chan, Zardari said, “Motherland comes first and then comes power. And motherland, the PPP is ready to hold negotiations.”

Zardari said Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed by Zia and the PPP didn’t even get justice in the reference filed in the case. He said all the characters in the Bhutto case were dead except the petitioner and the nation wanted justice.

He added that the PPP didn’t want punishment for anyone but believed that truth must come to surface before the nation regarding national issues. Criticising former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Zardari said such politicians had even put their homeland at stake in their lust for power and were not ready to be loyal to the motherland.

He said Nawaz remained under the umbrella of the establishment for three decades and started the politics of horse-trading in the form of Changa Manga. He said they should tell the nation what their elders had while they migrated to Pakistan but how they (Sharifs) set up their ‘shop’ here.

The Iftar reception was attended by a large number of PPP workers, who accorded a warm welcome to Zardari. However, some of the party workers also got annoyed with the organisers after they were not allowed to go to the stage.