Musharraf Said to Agree to Drop Role as Army Chief
    By Salman Masood
    The New York Times

    Thursday 30 August 2007

    Islamabad, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf has apparently agreed to resign as army chief during negotiations with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on a deal that would allow him to serve another term as president and for her to return to Pakistan to contest elections, Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

    General Musharraf's dual positions as military head and president has been the focus of increasing furor in Pakistan, and in repeated interviews over the last several weeks, Ms. Bhutto has been unswerving in her insistence that he step down from the military role.

    Today, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Pakistan's minister for railways, said at a news conference: "There is no more uniform issue. It has been settled and the president will make an announcement." The news conference was reported by the state-run news agency reported.

    Sheikh Mansoor Ahmed, the deputy secretary general of Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples' Party, said he believed that the agreement had been made. "My personal information is that President Musharraf has agreed to take off his military uniform before the presidential elections," he said. "An announcement in this regard will be made very soon. Within the next 72 hours, everything will be clear."

    In an apparent confirmation, Ms Bhutto told the independent Aaj television channel: "Eighty to ninety percent of the issues have been settled. Ten to 20 percent have yet to be decided,"

    "Some matters relating to a balance of power between the parliament and presidency are still pending," Ms Bhutto said in the television interview.

    General Musharraf, who took to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, had plans to run for re-election to a five-year term before Oct. 15 in a vote of the national and provincial assemblies but growing opposition to his rule, including within the newly independent Supreme Court has raised difficulties for him.

    A deal with Ms Bhutto, who has been living abroad for most of the last decade in self-imposed exile, could allow General Musharraf to push through a constitutional amendment and continue as president for another term.

    Senior aides of General Musharraf, including the head of the Inter Services Intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani, have been negotiating with Ms. Bhutto in London.