Pakistan seeks way out of crisis, detentions multiply

Turmoil in Pakistan ! How fitting , President Zardari is quickly finding out what appeasement is all about... losing control !

ISLAMABAD, March 13 (Reuters) - Pakistan's year-old civilian government sought a compromise to appease opposition leaders and a lawyers movement on Friday as police detained hundreds of activists in a bid to stifle a nationwide protest.

A protest by lawyers and opposition parties for an independent judiciary threatens to bring political turmoil and comes as President Asif Ali Zardari's government is struggling to check rising Islamist militancy and to revive a sinking economy.

Black-suited lawyers and flag-waving opposition activists launched a so-called long march from the cities of Karachi and Quetta on Thursday, and aim to reach Islamabad on Monday.

The government has tried to foil the protest with detentions, bans on rallies, and road blocks, while at the same time looking for a way to avert a showdown that could become violent.

Under a compromise Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is pushing, Zardari has agreed to yield ground to opposition demands, according to a presidential aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The protesters are demanding the reinstatement of former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was dismissed by former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf in 2007.

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Zardari has refused to reinstate the judge, seeing him as a threat to his own position, but the presidential aide said under the proposed compromise a constitutional court and an appellate court would be set up and Chaudhry would head one.

Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, has backed the lawyers, putting him into open confrontation with Zardari.

"We still believe there is a way out, we still believe that the elected prime minister of Pakistan should play his role," Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a senior leader in Sharif's party, told reporters in Islamabad.

"We even believe that options and space are available for Mr. Zardari to re-think, to come back from the brink," he said.