Pakistan's Zardari says wants to save coalition

By Aftab Borka

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The leader of the main party in Pakistan's fractured six-week-old coalition government, Asif Ali Zardari, said on Wednesday he hoped the party that resigned from the cabinet this week would remain a partner.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who heads the second biggest party in the coalition, said on Monday his members were quitting after failing to reach agreement with the main coalition party to reinstate judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf.

The resignations have raised the prospect of more instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a major U.S. security ally, after months of turbulence that began in March last year when Musharraf tried to dismiss the country's top judge.

A four-party coalition led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was formed after an election in February that resulted in defeat for former army chief Musharraf's allies.

In his first public comments on the split in the coalition, Zardari, Bhutto's widower who has led the PPP since her killing in December, said he wanted Sharif to remain a partner.

"I am not looking at a minus Nawaz position, I'm looking at a plus Nawaz league position, where I take him on every step," Zardari told a news conference.

"Even if we agree to disagree on some (issues) we should agree on most of them," he said.

Sharif has promised that his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), would still support the government while no longer being part of it.