LAHORE, PAKISTAN - Pakistan's leaders have set May 12 as the date to restore judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf, a top official said Friday, further threatening Musharraf's already diminished grip on power.

Restoring the judges has been a top priority for the two main parties in Pakistan's month-old government, but disputes over how to bring the judges back had threatened to break up the ruling coalition.

After marathon talks in Dubai this week, coalition officials finally came to a deal.

"I want to inform the entire nation that on Monday, May 12, all the sacked judges will be restored," Nawaz Sharif, the head of the second-biggest party in the coalition, said at a news conference.

But Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, a former minister and prominent Musharraf ally, predicted the coalition's plan would run into legal problems. A constitutional amendment was required to reverse Musharraf's purge of the courts, he said.

Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, ousted about 60 senior judges when he imposed a state of emergency in November to stop legal challenges to his re-election as president.