ISLAMABAD, 18 November 2007 — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf bluntly told top US diplomat John Negroponte yesterday that he would call off emergency rule only when the security situation improves in Pakistan. Separately, Musharraf assured the world in a BBC interview that the country’s nuclear arsenal will not fall into the wrong hands as long as the military is in control.
Musharraf met Negroponte, No. 2 in the US State Department, for two hours of talks which diplomats had said the US official would use to send “a very strong message” to end the two-week-old state of emergency.
It came a day after Negroponte spoke by telephone with opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who has scrapped power-sharing talks with Musharraf and urged him to quit.
Negroponte, the most senior US official to visit Pakistan since the crisis erupted, flew here amid growing US concern at the turmoil in its key ally in the “war on terror.” He also met Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, Pakistan’s deputy army chief of staff under Musharraf and his successor if he hangs up his uniform as promised.
“President Musharraf made it clear to the visiting US envoy that the emergency can only be lifted once the situation regarding law and order improves,” a Musharraf aide, who did not want to be named, said.
“He told the envoy that the emergency is meant to reinforce and strengthen the law enforcement apparatus in the fight against militancy and extremism,” the aide added.
Opposition parties have threatened to boycott countrywide elections under emergency rule. Musharraf has promised elections before Jan. 9.
An official said yesterday that the Election Commission would announce the date for elections on Nov. 21, after the country’s provincial assemblies are dissolved. Major political parties have been invited to the Election Commission tomorrow to discuss a code of conduct for the vote, Commission Secretary Kunwar Dilshad said.
In the BBC interview broadcast yesterday, Musharraf said that if elections were held in a “disturbed environment,” it could bring in dangerous elements who might endanger Pakistan’s “strategic assets.”
“They cannot fall into the wrong hands, if we manage ourselves politically. The military is there — as long as the military is there, nothing happens to the strategic assets, we are in charge and nobody does anything with them,” he said.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said later that Musharraf had not meant there was any danger that the weapons could fall into the wrong hands.
Musharraf dismissed Benazir’s chances of winning elections. He blamed Benazir, who has called for him to relinquish power, for ruining chances of a deal which would have seen her serving as prime minister under his presidency.
“She disturbed the entire environment. She comes on a total confrontational approach,” Musharraf said of Benazir, who returned from eight years of self-exile last month to lead her Pakistan People’s Party in elections.
— Additional input from agencies
