Musharraf should end dual role: US

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Friday that General Pervez Musharraf should end his “dual role” as president and chief of army staff of Pakistan. This is the first time that the Bush administration has taken a clear and straight position on the “uniform issue” and signals an important departure from past policy. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher also expressed the hope that the 2007 elections in Pakistan would be open and meet international standards with the “full participation of all political parties”. Boucher, asked at his Friday briefing to comment on the Commonwealth statement that President Musharraf should give up his dual role as president and chief of staff, said, “We have seen their statement ... I just want to repeat US policy, that we have made very clear it’s in Pakistan’s interest to continue its transition towards a fully functioning and stable democracy. We expect to see continuing progress towards this goal, which is central to Pakistan’s becoming a modern and moderate nation, as democracy involves more than elections and more than uniforms.” Boucher continued, “We would hope to see Pakistan strengthen its institutions, particularly its judiciary and parliament. We intend to continue to support the electoral process ... We would like to see an election that meets international standards and includes the full participation of all political parties. As you know, this issue has come up before. We’ve said, yes, we think it would be a good step for him to do that, but there is a lot more to building a democracy and we want to see - the chief concern is to see the national elections in 2007 come off as good elections and open elections.” khalid hasan

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