Pakistan expects to be readmitted to the Commonwealth next month after making progress towards restoring democracy, the country’s foreign minister said today.

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which deals with violations of the 53-member organisation’s rules on democracy, will meet in London on May 12 to review the suspension.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, told a news conference in Islamabad with his British counterpart, David Miliband, they had discussed Pakistan’s re-entry to the group of mostly former British colonies. “I am expecting a very positive outcome on May 12,” Mr Qureshi said.

Pakistan’s membership was suspended in November after President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, but the Commonwealth agreed to review progress after elections.

Since November Pakistan has gone through a democratic transition, and a new government has taken power following a general election on February 18 - delayed after the assassination of the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto - in which Mr Musharraf’s allies were trounced.

The new coalition has vowed to reinstate judges and undo the harsh media laws imposed by Mr Musharraf under emergency rule.

A Commonwealth spokesman said last week that a lot of the conditions set in November had been addressed.

Mr Miliband, who is visiting Pakistan and met Mr Musharraf, Yousaf Raza Gilani, the new Prime Minister, and other party leaders, said that Britain had been “absolutely clear” it was right for Pakistan to have left the Commonwealth in November.

“But equally, I want Britain to be a leading voice calling for Pakistan’s re-entry into the Commonwealth and to re-enter into the Commonwealth family where it belongs,” Mr Miliband told the news conference.

The Commonwealth previously suspended Pakistan in 1999 when Mr Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup but re-admitted the country in 2004 in recognition that democratic progress had been made.

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