British police are to assist in the investigation into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf said in a televised address last night, writes Mary Fitzgeraldin Karachi
Gen Musharraf said British prime minister Gordon Brown had agreed to send a team of detectives to help with the inquiry.
"This is a very significant investigation. All the confusion that has been created in the nation must be resolved," the president said in his first major public address since Bhutto's killing in a suicide bomb and gun attack during an election rally last Thursday.
British foreign secretary David Miliband said the team from Scotland Yard would leave for Pakistan by the end of the week.
The move follows calls from Bhutto's family and party for an independent investigation similar to that carried out by the United Nations into the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
Pakistan's government has faced criticism for the level of security it provided for the former prime minister on the day of her assassination and its insistence that it was the force of the blast and not gunshot wounds that killed her. Furthermore, its claims that an al-Qaeda-linked militant leader was behind her death have been met by increasing scepticism.
Pakistani authorities have resisted calls for a UN-led investigation and some observers believe Gen Musharraf's decision to accept assistance from Britain is an attempt to stem suspicions of a government cover-up.
Describing Bhutto's death as a great tragedy for Pakistan, Gen Musharraf repeated allegations that al-Qaeda was behind the killing and urged the media to "expose" pro-Taliban militant leaders who, he said, were directing suicide bombing attacks in the country.
He said he and Bhutto had shared the same mission of wanting to promote democracy and end terrorism.
"It is my conviction that the development and survival of Pakistan depends on it," he said. "We need to fight terrorism with full force, and I think that if we don't succeed in the fight against terrorism, the future of Pakistan would be dark."
Gen Musharraf's speech came hours after it was announced that elections scheduled for next week would be postponed until February 18th. The president said he had wanted the polls to go ahead as planned but the destruction caused by widespread rioting and looting in the wake of Bhutto's murder had made that impossible.
He called for reconciliation rather than confrontation in the lead-up to the election date, adding that troops and paramilitary forces would ensure law and order.
Opposition parties criticised the postponement but said they would still contest the elections, considered a major step in Pakistan's transition to democracy after years of military rule.
"People should be peaceful and express their anger through their ballots," said Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower and now leader of her Pakistan People's Party.