Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has asked Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman to convince Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to go for accountability after revelations in the Panama leaks.

A PPP delegation headed by Bilawal Bhutto called on Fazlur Rahman to discuss the overall political situation of the country as well as the Kashmir dispute. During the meeting, Fazl assured Bilawal that he would speak to premier on the matter.

Talking to journalists, Bilawal said he never called Nawaz Sharif or Altaf Hussain a traitor. “Being the son of Benazir Bhutto, I can never even think of using such words for any political leader. I said ‘turncoat’ to the friends of Modi, not to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in particular… Though I have lot of differences with him on the foreign policy, I must say that he is a patriot.”

Bilawal said that the meeting with Fazlur Rehman was neither a conspiracy nor any backdoor plan. He said it was a wrong perception that the PPP and the JUI-F were joining forces to hatch any plot. He said that he considered Fazlur Rehman as his uncle, because he was a friend of his father Asif Ali Zardari and remained a political ally of his mother Benazir Bhutto.

To a question, Bilawal said that nowadays the politics of minus-one was going on. “First of all my grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was subtracted, then my uncle Mir Murtaza Bhutto and mother Benazir Bhutto were eliminated. Now some people are talking to minus my father. Tomorrow they would want to minus Bilawal,” he added, reacting to the other day’s tirade of Imran Khan.

Sources told Daily Times that Bilawal and Fazlur Rehman wanted to “reach a positive conclusion” before October 30 to thwart the solo flight of Imran Khan.

On the occasion, the JUI-F chief said he would try to convince Nawaz Sharif to resolve the matter of Panama leaks. He said that the PPP and the JUI-F would work together on some points. Both the parties had cooperated with each other in the past, and would work together in the future on a few matters for the sake of continuation of democracy in the country, he said.