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PML-N ministers tender their resignations to PM : Gilani wants last try to avert split

* Prime minister refuses to accept resignations until party co-chairman returns
* Says ‘let us wait and try to resolve the matter’
* Talks to Nawaz on the phone

By Muhammad Bilal

ISLAMABAD: Federal ministers from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday tendered their resignations to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who “politely refused” to accept them until Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari returned to Pakistan.

He asked the ministers to continue to hold their offices meanwhile. “The prime minister politely refused to accept the resignations and said that the decision to accept them or otherwise will be taken after the arrival of [Zardari] in Pakistan,” a government spokesman said.

“Let us wait and try to resolve the matter,” Gilani told the ministers who met him at Prime Minister’s House. The PML-N ministers also submitted the resignation of Commerce Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who is not in Pakistan.

Gilani phones Nawaz: While addressing a news conference after the meeting, PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said Gilani asked the ministers to withdraw their resignations, and even talked to Nawaz on the phone asking him to withdraw the resignations, but he refused.

Nawaz however assured the PPP of his party’s support and co-operation, Nisar said.

He said the PML-N ministers had earlier addressed their resignations to the prime minister, but later decided to address them to the president as well “to avoid controversy”. He said his party expected the PPP to restore the judges sacked on November 3, 2007 now that it was not under pressure to meet a deadline.

He admitted that his party had agreed in the Dubai talks to accept that the judges who had taken oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) continue in their offices, but opposed it now that the negotiations had failed.

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