Benazir, who is living in Dubai to avoid graft charges in her home country, said she recently held talks in Saudi Arabia with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 bloodless coup.

"We had a fruitful meeting with President Pervez Musharraf in Jeddah recently over the issue of restoration of democracy in Pakistan and we hope that process would be speeded up," Benazir told reporters on her arrival in Jaipur, capital of India's western desert state of Rajasthan, the Press Trust of India new agency said.

"I hope that I shall be able to return to my country soon after the return of democracy," said Benazir, who heads the Pakistan People's Party.

"On our part we are trying our best to find ways as to how to speed up the process of return of democracy in Pakistan," she said.

However Benazir, who was on her way to offer prayers at shrine of a revered Indian Sufi saint, ruled out any agitation against Musharraf's rule.

"In the present international scenario we are not thinking in these terms," she said.

Benazir, who governed Pakistan twice between 1988 and 1996, was accompanied by her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who was released from eight years imprisonment in Pakistan last June on charges of murder and corruption.

Musharraf has held the posts of Pakistan president and army chief since seizing power from the democratically elected government of prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Last year, he pushed through a new law in parliament enabling him to continue as military chief despite earlier pledging to relinquish his dual post.

Pakistan held elections in November 2002 but a quick change in prime ministers since then has put question marks over Musharraf's pledges to restore democracy.

On talks with India, Benazir said the dialogue would be more meaningful if Islamabad was represented by "elected" leaders.

India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, are engaged in a slow-moving peace process that began in January last year.