Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari (above), who has taken over leadership of her party, was to meet later on Tuesday with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. -- PHOTO: AFP

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and head of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP), is to meet with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

'It is an important meeting. The agenda is restoration of judges and revival of the constitution as it was before the October 12, 1999 coup,' that brought Musharraf to power, PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq told reporters.

Mr Musharraf sacked the country's chief justice and dozens of other judges under a state of emergency in November, when it appeared that the Supreme Court was about to overturn his re-election as president the month before.

The Bhutto and Sharif parties trounced Mr Musharraf's allies in elections in February, and then together pledged to restore the judges within 30 days of forming a government.

But the issue has proved divisive.

The judges could in theory challenge Musharraf's position - and so restoring them with their full powers would spark a major confrontation with the president, a key ally in the US-led 'war on terror'.

New prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a key aide of Ms Bhutto, freed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry from house arrest last month, but analysts say the PPP wants to avoid an overt standoff with Musharraf for now.

However Mr Sharif, the man ousted by Mr Musharraf in 1999, has openly called for the president to quit and made the restoration of the outspoken Mr Chaudhry a key plank of his policy.

The meeting at Mr Zardari's house in Islamabad will also feature the leader of the ethnic Pashtun Awami National Party, Mr Farooq added.

The ANP defeated hardline Islamic parties in northwest Pakistan in the elections.

UN investigation into Bhutto's assassination
Pakistan's Parliament unanimously passed a resolution seeking a UN investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, officials from her party said on Tuesday.

Lawmakers in the National Assembly, or lower house of Parliament, adopted the resolution late on Monday, urging the government to ask the UN to look into Ms Bhutto's assassination in a gun and suicide bombing attack in December, said Izhar Amrohvi, secretary for parliamentary affairs in Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party.

President Pervez Musharraf has blamed a Taleban militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, for the attack in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad. Mr Mehsud has reportedly denied involvement.

Mr Amrohvi said the parliamentary resolution will be forwarded to the foreign ministry to contact the UN for a probe.

Law Minister Farooq Naek, who introduced the resolution, said it sought a UN mandated international commission to 'identify culprits, perpetrators, organisers and financiers behind the heinous crime and bring them to justice', state-run Radio Pakistan quoted him as saying Monday.

Mr Musharraf has opposed a UN probe but allowed British police to look into what caused Ms Bhutto's death.

The British investigation concluded that Ms Bhutto died after slamming her head against the roof of her bulletproof sports utility vehicle during the attack.

Ms Bhutto party officials claimed that she died from an assassin's bullet.

Pakistan's new government and Parliament are dominated by a coalition of anti-Musharraf groups led by Ms Bhutto's party.

They won parliamentary elections in February mainly on opposition to Mr Musharraf's increasingly authoritarian rule and his handling of the US-led war against terrorism.

Ms Bhutto's party had pledged to ask the UN to investigate her killing, and vowed to undo some of Musharraf's key constitutional amendments and reinstate senior independent-minded judges the former army chief sacked under a state of emergency in November.

Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who has taken over leadership of her party, was to meet later on Tuesday with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N party is the second-largest group in the four-party ruling coalition.

The two leaders, who are not members of Parliament, will discuss the country's 'current political situation' as well as the judges issue, said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Ms Bhutto's party.

Khawaja Mohammed Asif, minister of petroleum from Sharif's party, said on Monday that the two politicians were likely to finalise a strategy for restoring the sacked justices. -- AP