Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that the government had responded positively to the requests of the Sharif family in respect of the burial of Mian Mohammed Sharif in Lahore. No request was made for Nawaz Sharif or Shahbaz Sharif to accompany the coffin of their father, he added.
The Prime Minister gave this information in response to a question why the two brothers were not granted permission to accompany the body to Lahore.
The Prime Minister was informally talking to press men after Iftar dinner he hosted on Sunday.
When asked about Mushahid Hussain's proposal that the government should release political detainees, including Zardari and Javed Hashmi, and work for consensus and reconciliation in national politics, Shaukat said that his government believes in reconciliation and confidence building measures in domestic polity.
In this connection, he added that the government is engaged in a dialogue with PPP as also with PML (N).
But he evaded answer to a question whether he regarded Zardari and Hashmi as politicians or criminals.
About President Musharraf's proposals for solution of the dispute, the Prime Minister said that these were proposals for domestic discussion. No such proposal has been made to India. He added that Pakistan holds that the aspirations of the Kashmiri people have to be respected in a solution.
Pakistan, he said, is keen to resolve the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means and it wants to improve bilateral relations with India. The aspirations of Kashmiris would be the basis of the discussion. "No doubt, the sacrifices of the Kashmiris are not to be wasted," he remarked.
Answering a question about MQM ministers' allegation that they were not powerful, he rejected the suggestion, asserting that they enjoy authority and are fully empowered.
A correspondent reminded the Prime Minister that when he visited Pakistan during Nawaz Sharif's regime he had advised the then Prime Minister to adopt simplicity but now he was taking a big team for the foreign visit, Shauakat said that he did advise so at that time because the country was in dire financial straits.
He still believed that simple living should guide the country. As for the accusation that he was leading a big team on visit to Saarc countries, he said that the entourage consisted of 60 persons, of whom some 14 were officials, some members of his personal staff and the media people.
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