Royal Saudi 'No' to Musharraf for refuge

ISLAMABAD: The Saudis do not want to convert Jeddah’s Al-Saroor Palace into the Guantanamo Bay of exiled Pakistani leaders, observers said. Till last year, Nawaz Sharif and his family stayed here for about seven years after being forced into exile by Pervez Musharraf.

The Palace is lying vacant these days. The sources said that the Saudi Ambassador in Pakistan Ali Saeed Awadh Assirri who had gone to his native town Assir a few days back has yet to return to Islamabad. Had the Saudi offered President Musharraf asylum, Riyadh would have sent its envoy to Islamabad for the arrangements but the Saudis are not interested in playing as permanent host of any other top person from Pakistan.

The sources disputed the reported visit of a Saudi high up last week who came here for an overnight stay and had meeting with Musharraf and a leader who calls the shots these days. The high up has invited the President to visit Saudi Arabia for Umra with his family but there was no mention of asylum like he sought for Nawaz Sharif and his family. Musharraf has been offered with a dignified route for travelling to another destination but not a permanent stay in the Saudi Kingdom, the sources said.

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Even though I was not a huge fan of Musharraf still I think that the office he occupied needs to be respected. Now in the light of current news developments what do you think about Musharraf's future place of residence.

- Reports Indicate that Saudia Arabia is only willing to host him in transit
- US has already said the asylum option is "off the table"
- There has been silence from the UK side as well.
- Some noise about Turkey but nothing substancial.

Giving these facts where do you see Musharraf residing in the future. I think that he will choose to live in Pakistan but how he manages to do it is beyond me. First, there is the significant Al-Qaeda threat who as recently as last week had termed Musharraf as the biggest threat to Islam. I dont think that the Pakistani government will provide him with the adequate level of security needed to thawart the precision strikes of AQ. In light of laxed security a prospective assassination is not very unlikely. This kind of a tragedy will certainly hurt Pakistan and be catastrophic for its image. After all this government did allow some hooligans to rough up PML-Q ministers. Similar treatment of Musharraf will be in extremely bad taste as it will insult the office of the president. So my question is what do you guys think ? How do you see this situation playing out ?