WASHINGTON: The United States has firmly put its weight behind the “elected government”, declaring that it did not support any “extra-constitutional chan­ges” in Pakistan or those “attempting to impose” such changes.

At a news briefing in Washing­ton, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf made it clear that the US believed “Nawaz Sharif was elected and is prime minister” and that “there’s a government in place that was elected”.

The statement caused an angry reaction at Islamabad’s D Chowk, where thousands of PTI and PAT workers have been protesting for a week to force the prime minister to resign.

The US statement, however, was not a knee-jerk reaction to the crisis and clearly defined the US position on this issue.

“We support the constitutional and electoral process in Pakistan, which produced the Prime Minister of Nawaz Sharif,” said Ms Harf. “That was a process they followed, an election they had, and we are focused on working with Pakistan.”

In reply to a question about the demand for the prime minister’s resignation, the US official said: “We do not support any extra-constitutional changes to that democratic system or people attempting to impose them.”

“So you’re not calling for Prime Minister Sharif to step down?” asked the journalist.

“I in no way am calling on that,” said Ms Harf.

When another journalist compared Pakistan’s political unrest with the violence in Iraq and suggested that the military may take over the government because of the “grave situation” in Islamabad, she warned him not to do so.

“I’d … caution you from using terms like grave … Nawaz Sharif was elected and is prime minister. There is a government that was elected in place,” she said.

Ms Harf also warned the journalist not to assume that the political unrest would draw in the military.

“And again, I would caution you from assuming, sort of, where this goes from here. We think there’s a path forward here that’s peaceful. We know there’s a lot of space for political dialogue, but it has to remain peaceful,” she said.

Responding to PTI’s claim that since the last elections were rigged, Mr Sharif was not a legitimate prime minister, Ms Harf said: “He’s the prime minister, period.”

Ms Harf also disagreed with the suggestion that the current political crisis had made the country’s nuclear weapons unsafe.

“I would venture to guess that we always care about that issue,” said Ms Harf when a journalist asked if the United States was keeping an eye on those weapons.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014