ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s embattled government announced key concessions to opposition demands Saturday, on the eve of a mass protest in Islamabad that had raised fears of bloody clashes in the streets.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Pakistan’s opposition leader says the government placed Nawaz Sharif under house arrest today in Lahore to stop him from taking part in the rally. He said the order was to be in place for three days.
The concessions came as the army was put on standby, to be deployed in case of serious civil unrest, and Islamabad was sealed ahead of the planned arrival of the protesters from across the country Monday. The opposition is campaigning for an independent judiciary.
The pro-Western government led by President Asif Ali Zardari softened its stance under intense U.S. and British pressure. The compromise offer came just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Pakistani president and Sharif.
U.S. special envoy to the region Richard Holbrooke and the American ambassador in Islamabad, Anne Patterson, have been involved in detailed talks with the Pakistani government and opposition in recent days.
In its concessions, Islamabad offered to challenge a legal prohibition on Sharif’s and his brother’s standing for parliament and to reinstate conditionally the judges removed in 2007 by then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
But the concessions looked as if they were too little, too late. The offer did not satisfy the protesters, who said the march to the capital would go on.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
