KARACHI: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari put an end on Friday to speculations regarding an expected meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari, both of whom are in London for ‘medical’ reasons.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan announced he would meet forensic experts for assistance in investigating the data revealed in the Panama Papers.

“AZ [Asif Zardari] is not meeting NS [Nawaz Sharif],” said a single-line tweet by Bilawal Bhutto, which effectively rebuffed any guesswork regarding the revival of contact between the two parties.

PPP leaders believe that their chairman’s message was in line with the thought process and party policy designed after the Panama Papers disclosure.

Imran Khan meets forensic experts in London to seek assistance in investigating the Panama Papers data

“It is true what Mr Bilawal has formally confirmed that it [Sharif-Zardari meeting} was never on the cards,” said a senior PPP leader, Senator Saeed Ghani. “According to our information, there was no such meeting scheduled between the two leaders. So these were no more than speculative media reports that emerged due to the presence of both leaders in London.”

He said the PPP had its own stance vis-à-vis the Panama Papers and it would not toe any other party’s line over the data. He added, however, that they “of course” wanted transparent and thorough investigations into all the allegations. The PPP leadership did not, however, comment on its senior leader Senator Chaudary Aitzaz Ahsan’s claim, who had said the prime minister was visiting London only to “appear before Zardari’s darbar.”

If there is an understanding between the two parties, political sources and analysts said, both would not want to make it public through a meeting of their leaders. The Nawaz-Zardari meeting, they believed, would not be necessary if the two sides agreed to “cooperate” with each other in a way that it didn’t put a question mark over the PPP’s role as the leading opposition party.

The PTI, on the other hand, has stood firm and aggressive. The party’s chairman, flanked by his close aides, met forensic experts in London to seek assistance in making sense of the data. Party leaders claimed that the chairman would hold two more meetings along the same lines over the next couple of days.

“He [Imran Khan] has three kinds of engagements in London,” said PTI MNA and senior leader, Dr Arif Alvi. “There are some issues related to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust and some personal ones related to his children. And obviously there is the Panama Papers, for which Khan Sahab met a team of forensic experts today (Friday).”

Dr Alvi said the PTI was determined to trace the “money trail” and would go to any extent to achieve its objective. The recent meetings with forensic experts in London, he said, was part of the same campaign launched by the party which it would carry to its “logical end.”

He was uncertain about the end result of such an exercise as the services of forensic experts for investigations could cost the party quite heavily.

“We are not concerned about this,” he said. “We know that General Musharraf, during his tenure, traced the properties and wealth of our leaders through the NAB. We want to do the same kind of work, just not through the FIA or NAB which we don’t trust. We are channelling all our efforts and resources towards the task as an opposition party.”

‘Nawaz has gone for medical check-up’

Meanwhile, the government hinted at some flexibility when a key minister of the federal cabinet said the probe into the Panama Papers could be conducted even by a serving judge. He also rejected reports of any political agenda of the prime minister’s visit to London.

“He [Nawaz Sharif] has just gone for a medical check-up and would be among us in the next few days,” Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq told reporters in Lahore.

“The government has never denied a transparent and neutral investigation into the Panama Papers. The problem is that Imran Khan is desperate to gain power and become prime minister and unfortunately for that one-point agenda, he goes to any extent and makes non-issues an issue.”

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2016