ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan army as well as top leaders, including former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif who was ousted in a military coup in 1999, called for ailing ex-military ruler General Pervez Musharraf to be allowed to return to Pakistan.

Musharraf has been living in the United Arab Emirates since 2016, when he was allowed to leave Pakistan on bail to seek medical treatment abroad. Over the years, the former dictator was said to be very ill and last week his family announced he had been hospitalized in Dubai since last month.

"Pervez Musharraf sahib's health condition is very bad. The institution and the leadership of the institution has a stance that he should return to Pakistan," Major General Babar Iftikhar, director-general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), told a local news channel in an interview.

"His family was contacted in this regard, but it is his family and his doctors who are to decide if he can be allowed to travel in such a condition."

In a separate statement, Sharif said he had no personal enmity with Musharraf and did not want to deprive his family of being with him during his final days.

"I do not have a personal enmity or grudge against Pervez Musharraf. [I] do not want anyone to suffer the sorrows I suffered about my loved ones," Sharif said on Twitter. "I pray to Almighty Allah for his health. The government must facilitate if he wishes to return."