ISLAMABAD/KARACHI, May 25: Efforts to resolve the Sindh coalition crisis appeared to have made little progress on Thursday, despite both sides, Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim and a three-member MQM delegation, having held long discussions with federal interlocutors, particularly President Musharraf’s trouble-shooter Tariq Aziz.

The convener of the Muttahida’s coordination committee, Dr Imran Farooq, told Dawn from London that the delegation would meet President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Friday.

“Mr Aziz lent a sympathetic ear to our grievances and the 90-minute talks were held in a cordial atmosphere. He scanned the documentary evidence presented by the MQM delegation and said that he would make it his business to find out who was responsible for the crisis. The delegation gave him a detailed account of how Mr Rahim violated the accord reached with the MQM at the time of formation of government in Sindh,” he said.

The MQM delegation comprised Federal Shipping and Ports Minister Babar Ghouri, Sindh Industries Minister Adil Siddiqui and Hyderabad Nazim Kunwar Naveed Jamil.

The sources said that Mr Aziz would first brief President Musharraf on his separate meetings with the Sindh chief minister and the MQM delegation on Friday. They added that the MQM team would then call on the president.

They said the MQM delegation showed Mr Aziz some files which had been sent by provincial ministers to Dr Arbab Rahim for approval. They told him that the chief minister flatly refused to sign the files, the sources said.

They said that Mr Aziz was informed that some 7,000 summaries sent by the MQM ministers to the chief minister awaited approval.

The sources told Dawn that Dr Arbab Rahim had a brief discussion with President Musharraf over the Sindh coalition controversy on the sidelines of a chief ministers’s conference at Aiwan-i-Saddar on Thursday.

He also held an array of meetings with politicians and talking to newsmen in Islamabad made out a strong case against the Muttahida Quami Movement which he accused of seeking to turn him into a “rubber-stamp” chief minister.

“But why should I become a rubber stamp?” he said, adding that it was his duty to go over all summaries sent in by ministers with a fine-toothed comb. “I have no problems working with the Sindh governor, but I cannot approve all summaries with my eyes closed,” he said.

But the convener of the MQM coordination committee dismissed as untrue the chief minister’s accusations. “I want to make one thing absolutely clear: the Muttahida Quami Movement does not want to dislodge Mr Rahim from power. In fact, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s strongly worded statement in favour of Mr Rahim was for the benefit of the chief minister’s adversaries in the PML,” he said.