October 20, 2001	Saturday	Shaba'an 2, 1422

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WASHINGTON, Oct 19: The United States continues to attach importance to Pakistan’s full return to democracy and would be closely monitoring implementation of the timetable for elections announced by General Pervez Musharraf.

This was indicated by the State Department’s deputy spokesman, Mr Philip Reeker, during a special briefing for foreign correspondents here on Thursday afternoon.

Asked whether the waiver of almost all sanctions against Pakistan, including the so-called democracy sanctions, and in view of Islamabad’s role in the Afghan crisis, there might now be an inclination to soften insistence on the country’s return to democracy, Mr Reeker said: “I think, in fact, we’ve been quite clear in stating the importance we place in the return to full democracy in Pakistan. I think it’s a message that Secretary Powell took with him in his meetings there.”

Mr Reeker recalled that when General Musharraf had announced a road- map back to elections and democracy, the step had been welcomed by the US. “We’ll be watching that very closely. And in fact there are sanctions which we are unable to lift, which we cannot change until those democratic steps are taken. So we’ll be watching that very closely.”

He said it was in America’s interest to follow measures designed to make Pakistan a stronger partner, implying that restoration of elected government would facilitate the country’s development. Pakistan, he said, has been “an exceedingly strong partner in our coalition against terrorism. We understand the difficult decisions that President Musharraf had to take, and we think he’s taken the right decisions, and we think that the vast majority of the people in Pakistan support that, because we can’t believe that the people of Pakistan would have seen what occurred on September 11, seen the death and destruction of innocent people, realizing that those actions are entirely un-Islamic and therefore understand what we’re trying to do and also what we’ve been doing in trying to help the people of Afghanistan, which is a real serious problem, a humanitarian crisis that predates September 11, that was caused by the Taliban and by drought in the region.”

Mr Reeker was also asked about the perception that Afghanistan was being bombed only because the Taliban had refused to extradite Osama bin Laden unless the US provided evidence against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The spokesman pointed out that two years ago, the UN Security Council had passed resolutions requiring the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to countries where he could face justice. The Taliban had ignored those resolutions and others that followed.

As for evidence, he said: “We have strong evidence about Osama bin Laden, his Al Qaeda network and what they’ve done and being solidly behind this heinous crime. We shared this with our friends; we’ve shared this with our allies. The evidence is based on intelligence gathering, not only our own, but other evidence that’s been brought to our attention by friends and allies in the campaign against terrorism. It is common practice not to elaborate or to discuss sources or methods of that specific information, so that we don’t jeopardize the very sources that we use to protect our people around the world. And I think everybody understands that.”

Was the US, Mr Reeker was asked, refraining from executing the “coup de grace” against the Taliban regime until such time there was a broad-based government in place? He replied: “I have to leave the operational aspects of our campaign, particularly the military one, to the Pentagon, to the president. And I don’t think I am in a position to comment on those. I noted that our campaign, including our military action, has been extremely targeted, has been designed to take this one step at a time to reach the goal that we have, and that is the removal of this terrorist threat, the ripping out, the chopping off of the threat. And so we have taken the financial steps to seize assets, to close bank accounts, to inhibit and prohibit the use of the international monetary system for these terrorists to transfer funds, which help them to be able to perpetrate these acts. So I have to say that our goal there is to remove the terrorists and those that harbour them.”

Mr Reeker also reiterated the US position that there should be coalition government in Afghanistan, representing as “broad a variety as possible of the Afghan people, of the geographic and ethnic diversity there. And so that’s really a job for the Afghan people to do, but the United Nations and the rest of the international community can help with that. And that’s why we’re pushing this forward. But our campaign will go on, using all these different tools, until we’ve eliminated the threat of al Qaeda and ultimately the threat of terrorism more broadly”.