LONDON (Agencies) - US President Barack Obamas policy to halt the advance of militants in Pakistan differs little from the disastrous one pursued by his predecessor, Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition, told the Financial Times. Mr Obama has now come up with a new policy with little changes, very minor changes as compared to the last policy, said Nawaz Sharif. But I think the consultative process is better than what it used to be during Mr Bushs time. Sharif said Bushs policy had helped promote terrorism by backing General Pervez Musharraf, the former military ruler and president of Pakistan. [Mr Bush] gave blind support to Mr Musharraf and he turned a blind eye to all the atrocities at home that Mr Musharraf committed in his eight-year dictatorial rule...[he] never was keen that Pakistan should get back to the democratic path. Nawaz called for a cross-party approach to fighting militancy, which he described as the countrys top priority. He said the movement of people had to be controlled across the Afghan border and welfare programmes introduced. We have got to have a multi-pronged approach and pump maximum resources in the social sector and provide job opportunities to the people who live [in the border areas]. Basically those who are doing all this [militancy] are jobless people. They have nothing to do, Nawaz said. We all condemn terrorism. We have also got to go into the causes of terrorism. If you look at the last eight years, its been basically Musharrafs dictatorship which has been responsible for this kind of terrorism, extremism and radicalism. He said Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence agency could no longer back activities that harmed the country and the west. Last week, Mr Obama launched a new strategic partnership with Pakistan, offering a combination of military and development assistance to help the country recover the menace of a growing insurgency. He described al-Qaeda as a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within, and called the border area with Afghanistan the most dangerous place in the world. Mr Sharif, boosted by a string of political victories, is confident of completing his political comeback, a decade after a military coup swept him from power and forced him into exile. He says he is resolved to take the fight to Asif Ali Zardari in an effort to force the president to surrender his executive powers and return Pakistan to a parliamentary democracy. Well keep pushing now. I am determined to push [to strip the president of his additional powers]. The satisfaction I derive from what Im doing now is much more than I used to get when I was the prime minister of this country, he said. Mr Sharif sketched a vision of the countrys political future built on strengthening political institutions to keep the army out of power. His goal is to place Pakistan among the worlds stable democracies, overcoming its propensity for military takeovers and reversing the loss of territory to militant groups. We have a parliamentary democracy in Pakistan as you have in Britain, as they have in India. We want to follow the same system. It is the prime minister who runs the show, who is the chief executive of the country, said Mr Sharif. He also said he wanted the Charter of Democracy, agreed with Benazir Bhutto, his assassinated political rival, enshrined in law. We made a very good beginning in 2008 after the elections and I was very hopeful that now things will move forward because Zardari and I signed that agreement. But soon, Mr Zardari wriggled out of that commitment, said Mr Sharif. Of course, at the time of Mr Musharrafs resignation again when we were all planning to impeach him, another agreement was signed. That was not honoured by Mr Zardari. I also felt let down, disappointed and dismayed as to why Mr Zardari was not fulfilling his promises. Mr Sharifs political challenge has grown more potent over the past month, since he and Shahbaz, his younger brother, were disqualified from future political contests in a verdict handed down by the Supreme Court in February. Mr Sharif responded by taking to the streets to back the cause of the return of Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice of the court, two years after he was sacked by Mr Musharraf. Mr Sharif says he will not return to street protests in a hurry. He is prepared to bide his time before making another challenge for power in elections. He says he wants the Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) of Mr Zardari to complete its five-year tenure - allowing civilian rule to break new ground in a country where elected politicians have seldom completed their terms of office. He insists he does not seek the powers of the premiership for any reasons of self-interest.