Pakistan retreats on controversial graft amnesty

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's government has averted a potentially destabilizing coalition split by abandoning a bid to get parliamentary approval for an amnesty from graft charges for the president and other senior politicians.

The amnesty, introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf in 2007 in a bid to strike a power-sharing deal with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was to be debated in parliament this week as the government struggles with a surge in militant violence.

Musharraf introduced the National Reconciliation Order (NRO) by decree, but the Supreme Court said in July that it had to be approved by parliament.