dallying and protracted negotiations, Nawaz Sharif, the two-time Pakistani prime minister, has somehow managed to keep his Pakistan Muslim League's coalition with the PPP, the party of Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Zardari, intact. Prolonged talks in Islamabad and Dubai, which often bordered on Sharif party's virtual threat to walk out of the ruling coalition, have now resulted in a firm and unwavering commitment to restore the judges who steadfastly stood against President Pervez Musharraf's much-maligned Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) of November 3 last. To restore judges has been the primary concern of Sharif's party: It even gets priority over the country's fledgling economic condition resulting from a steep hike in prices of essential commodities and the deteriorating law and order situation. Now that Sharif has been able to extract the pledge on judges from a recalcitrant Zardari, the time has come for the two leaders to address the more pressing issues of bread and butter and to provide the necessary security to the Pakistanis already reeling under a spate of suicide attacks and the daily violence associated with it. There have been reports this week that the new government, which took power in February, is offering an olive branch to Taleban-style militants in Waziristan tribal area of North West Frontier Province. Analysts and people well versed with the tribal society have long been clamoring for some sort of negotiations in order to tame these militants and bring them into the mainstream. But the administration under Pervez Musharraf, ostensibly under pressure from United States, maintained a tough line with the militants which virtually nipped in the bud any chances of reconciliation. The government's attempts to have a deal with the militants is not being taken kindly by the administration of George Bush with senior US officials maintaining that any pact with the tribal militants at this juncture would give them time to regroup and consolidate their position. A negotiated settlement is the best course to resolve a crisis. But, of course, this recourse is foreign in the US scheme of things: Otherwise, history may not have witnessed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It remains to be seen as to when and how the Pakistani government works out the proposed deal with the militants. As and when it happens, it surely will augur well for the country in these troubled times. __
