Benazir Bhutto said on Monday she had no immediate plans to revive US-backed power-sharing talks with President Pervez Musharraf amid the crisis over emergency rule. At the same time her party withdrew a legal challenge to his re-election as president, arguing it did not want to recognise the new Supreme Court because it has been purged of most of its previous judges.
Benazir did not, however, categorically rule out talks in the future and her words appeared to signal a slight shift in stance, having last week called on Musharraf to quit.
"I have had no meeting with Musharraf and no such meeting is scheduled," she told reporters in her power base in Karachi. Her comments came after the United States called at the weekend for Benazir and Musharraf to resume the Western-backed negotiations they had been holding before he imposed emergency rule on November 3.
"We are not going back to the former track," she told reporters earlier.
"I have made it clear that we are interested in a road map for democracy, but we do not have the confidence that General Musharraf's regime can give us that road map." Benazir was speaking after meeting US ambassador Anne Patterson.
A close aide to Benazir said that while she would not restart talks as long as Musharraf had not ended the emergency and quit as army chief, there was a possibility for dialogue afterwards.
Benazir also stressed Monday that extremism, with militants making gains in north-west Swat valley, was the biggest threat facing the country since it won independence - something Musharraf has also said.
Patterson told reporters as she left that she was meeting Benazir and other political leaders to press for free, fair and transparent elections. "The United States is interested in the reconciliation of all the moderate political elements," she said. "I am here to assure her and all others that we will do everything possible to ensure that the election takes place."
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