WASHINGTON, Nov 12: US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is expected to visit Islamabad later this week for talks with the government on the current political crisis, official sources told Dawn on Monday.

Mr Negroponte is expected to meet Gen Pervez Musharraf with a message from Washington, outlining various proposals for ending the crisis, sources said. These include lifting the emergency as soon as possible, ending curbs on the media and the civil society imposed after emergency and releasing all political leaders and activists arrested during the last 10 days.

In an interview to a US newspaper, published on Monday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that the emergency could discredit the parliamentary elections Gen Musharraf has pledged to hold before Jan 9. “It’s very hard to see how you could have free and fair elections with a state of emergency in place,” she said. “And it’s one reason that we’ve been emphasising not just the holding of free and fair elections, but the lifting of the state of emergency as well.”