Pakistan's ruling party said Thursday that it has buried its rivalry with a group of former supporters of President Pervez Musharraf, further isolating the US-backed president. However, it was unclear if the Muttahida Quami Movement would join the coalition government that took office this week, or how far it will back plans to cut the president's powers. Asif Ali Zardari, the widower and political successor of slain ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto whose party leads the new government, met late Wednesday with leaders of the MQM. Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Zardari's Pakistan People's Party, said the two sides “agreed to bury the bitter past in order to start a new era of friendship.” Asked whether the MQM could join the coalition government, Babar said only that the two parties had established an eight-member committee to “explore how to further enhance cooperation.” The MQM controls the southern city of Karachi, Pakistan's business hub and its main port, and was a key member of the coalition government that supported Musharraf's military rule. It has a long and bitter rivalry with the People's Party, which dominates the surrounding province of Sindh. Bhutto and others implicated the MQM in violence that killed about 40 people during an anti-Musharraf rally in Karachi last May. But it has distanced itself from the president and responded to overtures from Zardari since opposition parties swept February parliamentary elections. The two parties are exploring cooperation in Sindh, where the People's Party already holds a slender majority in the provincial assembly. But its inclusion in the federal government appears trickier. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Zardari's main coalition partner, has already raised doubts about that prospect and is demanding an inquiry into the May 12 carnage in Karachi. “Our party leadership has already said it has some reservations about working with the MQM at the central level, and I have nothing to add,” said Sadiq ul-Farooq, a senior member of Sharif's party. Baber Ghauri, a senator for the MQM, said Zardari's visit to his party's headquarters in Karachi was a helpful gesture whose ´impact would also be felt at the federal level. Ghauri refused to comment on whether his party will support the government's planned moves to strip the president of his power to dissolve parliament and restore Supreme Court judges purged by Musharraf in November. Musharraf declared emergency rule to oust the judges, who were about to rule on the legality of his disputed re-election as president the month before. “Discussing these things is very premature at this point of time,” Ghauri said. __
