Former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif says all the senior judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last year will be reinstated on 12 May.

He was speaking after briefing members of his PML-N party on the issue.

The PML-N has held two days of talks with the biggest party in Pakistan's new coalition government, the PPP, to resolve differences over the judges.

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"I want to inform the entire nation that on Monday 12 May 2008, all deposed judges will be restored," Mr Sharif told journalists in Lahore.

Mr Sharif and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari spent Wednesday and Thursday discussing the issue in Dubai, where Mr Zardari lived for many years with his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December.

On his return to Pakistan, Mr Sharif told reporters the judges would be reinstated "with dignity, respect and honour".

On Thursday he said the Dubai talks "yielded very positive results".

There has been no word from Mr Zardari on the talks.

President Musharraf sacked about 60 judges, including chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, in November 2007, after declaring a state of emergency.

'Fully satisfied'

After the Dubai talks concluded, Mr Sharif said he was "fully satisfied" by the progress made.

"The judges will be restored through a [parliamentary] resolution," he said.

Judicial reforms sought by Mr Zardari were a "separate issue", he said, adding that he would give further details in Lahore on Friday.

The PPP's Sherry Rehman said there had been progress in the talks and that Mr Sharif would make a formal announcement on Friday.

"Judges will be reinstated, the parliament will also pass a resolution and there will also be a constitutional package," she said.

The talks between the two main coalition leaders started at a hotel in Dubai on Wednesday.

Mr Zardari had wanted to link the judges' reinstatement to a broader package of judicial reforms that would apparently curb the powers of the chief justice.

Mr Sharif had insisted that any reform package be worked out later, since restoring the judges had been his condition for joining the coalition.

At the time of the sackings, the Supreme Court was preparing to rule on whether Mr Musharraf's re-election that year was legal.

It was also due to rule on whether an amnesty the president granted to Mr Zardari and Mrs Bhutto in a number of corruption cases was legal.

(BBC)

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