LAHORE, Pakistan — As pressure mounted on the government to reach an accommodation with the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, politicians here suggested a deal was under way on Friday night to roll back some of the measures taken by President Asif Ali Zardari against Mr. Sharif.
The chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met Friday with Mr. Zardari, and with the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, in what politicians said was an imminent decision to lift executive rule in Punjab Province, one of Mr. Sharif’s demands for stepping back from confrontation.
Mr. Zardari placed the Punjab, the most populous province in Pakistan and the stronghold of Mr. Sharif, under the rule of the governor on Feb. 25, and effectively dismissed the provincial assembly, where Mr. Sharif’s party predominates.
Pakistani leaders were also discussing a Feb. 25 Supreme Court decision that disqualified Mr. Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, from elective office, politicians from both the governing and opposition parties said.
That decision has been widely criticized in the Pakistani news media and among politicians as a political ruling carried out at Mr. Zardari’s behest.
The presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said Friday that no decisions had been made. Mr. Zardari’s political maneuvering against Mr. Sharif, combined with sweeping security measures imposed before a national protest planned by Sharif supporters and a lawyers’ group, have been widely criticized in Pakistan.
The government said it had acted because Mr. Sharif was trying to foment revolution and court Islamist groups; Mr. Sharif and his allies accused the government of suppressing dissent.
The contours of a possible resolution of the crisis came after the American special envoy for Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, urged reconciliation in telephone conversations with Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif on Thursday.
A senior Pakistani politician, who declined to be identified because of the fluid nature of the situation, said Friday night, “The president has tasked the prime minister to come up with a concrete proposal after talking to the Sharifs.”
Pakistani political commentators have portrayed the army chief, General Kayani, as unhappy with the duel that has pitted Mr. Zardari against Mr. Sharif and that threatens to destabilize Pakistan further.
As the political talks continued in Islamabad, the government stepped up its attempts to thwart the national protest, arresting dozens more lawyers and opposition politicians, extending its ban on public gatherings to the restive North-West Frontier Province, and sealing off highways leading to Islamabad and Lahore.
Mr. Sharif said he planned to address protest rallies this weekend. He said in several television interviews on Friday night that he could not trust any accords offered by Mr. Zardari until they were actually carried out.
As well as demanding that Mr. Zardari rescind his decisions of Feb. 25, Mr. Sharif is insisting that the government reinstate an independent judiciary that was quashed by the former president, Pervez Musharraf, two years ago.
One of the questions that remained unclear on Friday night was how any accommodation with Mr. Sharif would deal with the future of the former chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was fired by Mr. Musharraf in March 2007.
The security clampdown by the government and the political maneuverings by Mr. Zardari have provoked the first rumblings of public dissent within the normally cohesive Pakistan Peoples Party that Mr. Zardari heads.
Some of the criticism came from senior members of the party who were loyal to Mr. Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, and her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
In a scathing comment directed at Mr. Zardari, a former senator, Safdar Abbassi, said at a news conference on Friday: “You occupy the seat of power due to the sacrifices of Benazir Bhutto and Zulfikar Bhutto; therefore you should fulfill their promises.”
Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007.
By Friday morning, the police in the Punjabi capital of Lahore, who are under the control of a Zardari ally, Gov. Salman Taseer, had arrested more than 700 people, said Rao Iftikhar Ahmed, the province’s home secretary.
Senator Pervez Rasheed, a spokesman for Mr. Sharif, said raids were being conducted at the houses and offices of opposition workers and leaders across Punjab.
Mr. Rasheed said 450 opposition party workers had been arrested while “others have managed to escape or gone underground.” Those in hiding, he said, will reappear Sunday to march from Lahore to Islamabad.
In Islamabad, the police raided an office of the Justice Party of Imran Khan, a former Pakistani cricket star who is now a politician, and confiscated banners, flags and megaphones, a party spokesperson said. Mr. Khan, a vociferous opponent of Mr. Zardari, is in hiding.
“How long can they seal off Islamabad?” Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a senior leader of Mr. Sharif’s political party, told reporters outside Parliament in Islamabad. “How long will they seal off the entrances to the city? How long can they rule with the help of police and Rangers?” He was referring to paramilitary units.
But the government defended its measures, saying that militants with Al Qaeda could exploit the political strife.
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