WASHINGTON, April 22: The United States has again lent support to the ‘democratic process’ in Pakistan, saying that it hopes the 2007 elections in the country would be ‘free and fair’.
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was asked at a briefing whether America would welcome an announcement by President Pervez Musharraf to step down, parried the question.
Instead, she said that the US supports “democratic processes in all countries,” and with Pakistan “we’ve been clear … that they have elections in 2007.”
Ms Rice told a group of journalist also said that the US expects the 2007 elections to “be free and fair”.
“Let me just note that Pakistan has come quite a long way from the country that was in many ways almost overtaken by extremism when Sept 11 happened in 2001. When you look at where Pakistan was there — one of the few countries to recognise the Taliban,” she said.
“We have also tried to help President Musharraf in the work that he has done to talk about a kind of enlightened moderation in Pakistani politics and to lay the groundwork, then, for a democratic election in 2007,” she added.
