New Delhi, Sept 21 (IANS) The Maldives' leading opposition party has sought India's help in pushing democratic reforms in the Indian Ocean atoll nation and urged New Delhi to suspend defence cooperation with the present government headed by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

"We are frankly disappointed with the way India has been involved with the Maldives," Mohamed Latheef, founder and leader of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club here.

"India gives a lot of firearms and other weapons to the Maldives which are eventually used by the present regime against common people," Latheef charged.

"The time has come for India to be robust about its involvement in the Maldives and help in promoting democracy there," Latheef said.

"I want to usher in a modern, liberal democracy in line with modern democracies of the world," Gayoom, Asia's longest-serving leader, had told IANS in an interview last month in his presidential palace in the Maldivian capital.

In 1988, the then Rajiv Gandhi government, at the request of Gayoom, sent armed forces to Male to help avert a threat to his rule from anti-government forces. Gayoom has acknowledged and thanked India countess times for its help.

A delegation of MDP activists led by Latheef will meet senior Congress leader and Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) president Karan Singh Friday.

The MDP has been holding informal talks with the Maldives government for initiating democratic reforms in the country. The talks, which are facilitated by the British high commission in Male, has resulted in the release of a few political prisoners. Mohamed Nasheed, the chairperson of MDP, was released from house arrest recently.

"The presence of the international community in the negotiations between political parties in the Maldives will help push the democratic reform process in the country," Latheef said.

"As long as political activists and ordinary people are detained without reason, how can you cooperate with them. We support political reforms, but we don't believe in what Gayoom says," Latheef replied when asked to respond to Gayoom's charge that the opposition was not cooperating with him in accelerating the reform process.

Three years ago, Gayoom, who has been the country's president for the last 28 years, unveiled an ambitious package of 31-point political reforms culminating in multi-party democracy in 2008.

The MDP leader, however, slammed Gayoom's democratic agenda as a "charade" and said that if he was sincere, he could start by releasing all political prisoners and removing restrictions on media and freedom of expression.

"We believe that the process can be much faster. The multi-party elections can be held sometime in 2007,"

"If there are free and fair elections, we will win with a majority," said Latheef.