LAHORE, July 1: PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has told US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher that Pakistan’s political system should be allowed to find solutions to national problems.

“If world powers that call themselves friends of Pakistan cannot facilitate things … then at least they should not meddle in the country’s internal affairs,” PML-N’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan quoted Mr Sharif as telling Mr Boucher.

Briefing media personnel after the meeting between Mr Sharif and Mr Boucher here on Tuesday, Mr Khan said the PML-N chief had opposed the use of force and US-led Nato forces’ attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas and made it clear that only a policy made in Pakistan could solve domestic problems.

“The problem can be solved only through talks as (President Pervez) Musharraf’s eight-year policy of running affairs at gunpoint has failed and it can neither settle issues nor protect our interests,” Mr Nisar quoted Mr Sharif as saying.

The PML-N chief also urged the US to stop supporting President Musharraf and said that the deposed judges should be reinstated in accordance with the mandate given by the people in the February polls, he added.

“Democratic, political and judicial affairs cannot move forward unless this hurdle is removed.”

Answering a question about the president’s future, the PML-N leader said his party believed that Musharraf was the biggest hurdle in the country’s progress and restoration of an independent judiciary.

Admitting that Mr Boucher’s stance was “not close to that of ours”, Chaudhry Nisar quoted the US official as saying that his country wanted to befriend Pakistani masses, especially the new leadership in parliament, and not just one person. “We want to usher in a new era,” Mr Boucher was quoted as saying.

Answering a question about the Fata operation, he said that immediately after the polls polls, Mr Sharif had raised the issue with the allies and demanded a review of the policy.

At that time, the coalition allies had been briefed by security agencies and there was a consensus that the problem should be settled through talks.

But, he said, later the PPP-led government neither shared information about the talks nor clarified who was handling the policy -- the federal or the provincial government or the armed forces.

Then, he said, an operation was launched without any consultation with the allies and without informing them what had led the government to take such an extreme step.

The PML-N leader said his party would discuss the issue with the prime minister on Wednesday.

He also cited reports about a lack of resistance from the so-called militants and the failure of the forces to seize the huge quantities of weapons which they allegedly possessed.

He told a questioner that Mr Boucher had been told that President Musharraf had been using the ploy of killing some local people just before the arrival of any official from Washington to prolong his rule and the present government was following the same policy.