ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Monday told the ruling coalition to be more “proactive” and take the lead in running both the houses of parliament as he would not show any more flexibility in talks with the opposition parties.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who addressed about 40 selected members of the ruling coalition for over four hours in the presence of Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, said that Pakistan’s reputation abroad suffered greatly due to a rise in extremism in the country.

The president made a brief mention of the govt-MMA talks but did not go into any details. He said that he had shown enough flexibility and should not be asked to give a date for laying off his uniform. He said his promise that he would leave the office of the COAS at an appropriate time should be enough.

One of the participants told Dawn that President Gen Musharraf asked the ruling alliance to activate parliament and said there was no point in delaying the summoning of the session.

No date was given for the next assembly session, though. The president also did not tell the parliamentarians when he would address a joint sitting of parliament.

The president told the delegation that if Pakistan was to become a respectable member of the international community, it would have to banish religious extremism from its soil.

He said a handful of extremists were holding the majority of the educated and liberal Muslims hostage, and it was about time the educated and moderate Muslims stood up and be counted.

Pakistan, he said, was at the crossroads. The president said the mosques are the places from where love and harmony should emanate and not hatred.

The sources said that the president was not happy with the MQM’s approach about Thal canal. The president asked the ruling coalition not to pull itself in opposite directions, and told them to develop unanimity on all issues of national importance, including Thal.

The participants said that President Pervez Musharraf made it clear that if the Muslims did not get rid of emotionalism and failed to keep pace with the fast-moving events in the world, they would continue to lag behind others.

He said not just Pakistan but the Muslim Ummah was also at a crossroads as the world had a lot of misgivings about the Muslim countries.

In order to improve relations and dispel misgivings between the West and the Ummah, he recommended a two-pronged approach for shunning confrontation and adoption of the path of enlightened moderation by the Ummah.

The international perception about Pakistan and the Muslim Ummah was that they were hubs of fundamentalism, religious extremism and intolerance, he said.

The president, one of the participants said, devoted much of his time discussing various ways and methods to improve the image of Ummah. The president said that during his meetings with the western leadership, he had stressed the need for a just resolution of all political disputes involving Muslims.

He said in addition to this the West must also assist the Muslim countries in their fight against poverty, illiteracy and help in improving health and other social services.

The president said prior to the forthcoming OIC summit in Kaula Lumpur he intended to consult the leaders of Muslim countries on making the OIC a more effective organization and in this connection he was already in contact with many of them.

The president said that Pakistan was facing the problems of religio-sectarian extremism and also suffered from a poor international image. He said that a small minority of extremists, through their acts, was damaging our image while the vast majority of Pakistanis was moderate.

According to some of the participants the president described the performance of the elected parliament as dismal and disappointing so far, and stressed the need for pushing ahead with its real job of legislation.

They said in his four-hour meeting the president took two hours explaining his own agenda and giving lots of advice to the coalition partners.

During discussions, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the government should continue with the dialogue process while managing to deepen the division within the opposition parties. The talks he said should be designed in a manner that these should reflect a collective strategy of the government.

Another participant, senator Mohammad Ali Durrani of Millat Party stressed enhanced intra-party coordination among the coalition partners and said that parliament should revert to public interest legislation.

Sheikh Rashid later told reporters that the president was not happy with what he termed lack of coordination among the coalition partners which was hampering the overall performance of the government.

He said the president touched upon all the major national issues, including the dialogue process, sectarianism/terrorism, Thal canal and parliamentary legislation.

The president stressed that the 58(2)(b) should be accepted after bringing it under the check of National Security Council. He also asked the coalition parliamentarians to take the responsibility of defending all the government policies.

He said he would himself be embarking upon a visit to Sindh from Aug 23 to try to pacify the differences on the Thal project “which was in no way harmful to Sindh province.”

The president also called upon the government coalition parties to play their political role in elimination of sectarianism from the country as the agencies, he added, were doing their job already.

According to an insider, during the interaction between the president and the visiting delegation of the ruling alliance, MNA Chauhdry Wajahat, younger bother of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the PML-Q president formally invited the president to enter the political arena.

“Mr president, it is high time for you to come forward and play your role,” said Wajahat.