Staff Correspondent

Five advisers sat with leaders of the party's 'reformist' faction, including acting secretary general Hafizuddin Ahmed, at state guesthouse Meghna.

The talks are meant to narrow the gap between the government and political parties and iron out a series of issues ahead of year-end polls. A senior BNP leader, Mahbubur Rahman, led the six-member delegation that also included Khaleda Zia's adviser ZA Khan.

After the midday meeting, Hafizuddin told reporters: "We demanded freedom for Khaleda Zia in the meeting." "There is no specific allegation against her. She must be freed immediately," the BNP leader said. The BNP leaders suggested the government, along with political parties, formulate a code of conduct to keep prices of essentials at a tolerable level.

Law adviser AF Hassan Ariff, communications adviser Ghulam Quader, foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, LGRD adviser Anwarul Iqbal and commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman represented the government.

"The talks were successful," said Hossain Zillur. The adviser said peaceful elections, formulating codes of conduct for politics and formal dialogue formed the meeting agenda. "We assured them that the government wants a free, fair and peaceful election to be held by the end of December, in line with the Election Commission roadmap," Hossain Zillur said.

"We are sitting for informal talks in a bid to create an atmosphere of confidence ahead of the dialogue," he added. He underlined the need for efforts to bring some qualitative changes within political parties.

BNP leader Mahbubur Rahman said there were talks on what steps take to prevent the country returning to a pre January 11 state. Earlier in the day, the leaders of the troubled party held a meeting at the Gulshan home of acting party chief and former finance minister M Saifur Rahman to decide whether to join the talks.

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