Musharraf to visit Malaysia from March 27

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, MARCH 24. Pakistan's Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, will pay a three-day ``working visit'' to Malaysia from March 27. While this was officially announced in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, there are strong indications that Gen. Musharraf may visit Singapore thereafter and travel to Indonesia and Brunei as well. But there is no official word yet on his tour of these countries.

Indicating that Gen. Musharraf had taken the initiative for the visit to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Foreign Minister, Mr. Hamid Albar, said this would offer ``a good opportunity'' for ``discussions on the current state of Pakistan'' and on bilateral issues.

Malaysia, as a member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, was seized of the question whether Pakistan could be reinstated as a ``fully participating member'' of the organisation, Mr. Hamid said. Welcoming Gen. Musharraf's planned visit in this context, Mr. Hamid said Malaysia ``will know what action they (the powers-that-be in Islamabad) will take to bring back Pakistan to normality and to enable the country to once again become a member of the Commonwealth.''

Keeping in focus Kuala Lumpur's opposition to the very idea of a military coup anywhere, Mr. Hamid said Gen. Musharraf ``is coming as a leader of a country but our (Malaysian) position on what we think of a military junta replacing a civilian government democratically elected does not change.''

Although Mr. Hamid turned the spotlight on a possible assessment of Pakistan's place in the Commonwealth, Gen. Musharraf's visit would give the latter an opportunity to discuss with his interlocutors the nature and scope of an important session of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), scheduled to be hosted by Malaysia in June this year. The proposed theme of the meet is Islam and globalisation.

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Section  : International
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