Deal with Musharraf to enable restoration of democracy: Benazir

New Delhi, Sept 11 (UNI) Asserting that her deal with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was neither a lifeline to a dictator nor to ensure withdrawal of pending corruption case against her, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said her primary goal was restoration of democracy in her country.

''It is democracy we are fighting for. We are not supporting him. We are supporting a transition to democracy. We are supporting the holding of free elections,'' she said, in an interiew on the 'Devil's Advocate' programme.

Asked why she was negotiating with a military dictator, despite her family record of opposing military rule, the PPP leader recalled that her family had never given in to the dictators, citing her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto spurning Gen Zia ul Haq's offer after the latter's coup in 1977 and her own opposition to him.

''... I have not agreed to dictatorship. My husband spent eight years in prison. I chose the consequences of opposing a military dictator,'' she said, adding she was not afraid of going to jail.

Rubbishing charges that the deal was intended to get the cases against her withdrawn, she noted that they (the Musharraf regime) would be only too happy to remove them of their own voilition.

''If I wanted the corruption charges dropped alone, there would be no problem, would there. They will be too happy to do it as they dropped corruption cases against Nawaz Sharif and remitted his sentences,'' she observed.

Ms Bhutto said despite the recent setbacks, she was still hopeful of reaching an accord with Gen Musharraf.

''We haven't still got to the point where there is an agreement.

Certainly time is running out. But the window is not totally shut.

So it is certainly open,'' she said, adding that whether an agreement was reached or not, she would be returning to Pakistan soon.

''My party will announce the date on September 14 from the soil of Pakistan,'' she said, and refuted it being a bluff.

She also denied she was under pressure from the US to strike a deal with the General. ''I know some people are trying to create the impression but its wrong,'' she said, noting the regular visit of senior US officials to Pakistan was due to her country being a key ally in the war against terror.

Ms Bhutto expressed little sympathy for her successor, Nawaz Sharif, who was unceremoniously deported from Pakistan yesterday after trying to return after a seven-year-long exile.

Charging him with ''compromising his position'' by involving Saudi and Lebanese leaders to get out of prison, she asserted she was more popular then him and all the opinion polls showed she and her party were more popular in Pakistan.

UNI