Did anyone say that politics makes strange bedfellows?

Ah, how true. How true.

Beleaguered Pakistan President and military chief Pervez Musharraf has held secret talks for a second time with his bitter foe Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party and former Prime Minister of the country.

The secret meeting is believed to have taken place in Abu Dhabi on Friday, July 27, 2007.

Both sides are mum on the discussions.

Reporting on the meeting between Musharraf and Benazir, the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) wrote on Monday:

A senior Pakistani cabinet minister said the meeting between the two leaders was part of an effort to develop a consensus on major political issues.

Benazir is currently in exile and divides her time between London and Abu Dhabi.

News reports say that this is the second hush-hush meeting between the two leaders.

The first meeting is also supposed to have taken place in Abu Dhabi in January 2007 but did not yield any results.

Musharraf is under fire from radical Islamic elements in Pakistan who feel he’s sold out to the U.S.

At the same time, the Americans are unhappy with Musharraf believing that he’s not done enough to help the U.S. capture Osama Bin Laden, presumed to be hiding somewhere in the dangerous mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Musharraf’s position has become weakened and precarious in the wake of the controversy over the dismissal of the country’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the recent violence at Islamabad’s Red Mosque.

The Chief Justice was reinstated recently by a 13-member bench of the high court.

Musharraf grabbed power from the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif via a military coup in October 1999.