By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : With a top US envoy expected to reach Pakistan Friday, Washington played coy about his mission – to work out an exit strategy for embattled President Pervez Musharraf or find a way to bail him out.
US officials Thursday sent mixed signals to its key ally in the face of reports that Washington was ready to dump the general as he defiantly rejected its demands to end his emergency rule and take off his army uniform.
“The United States has an investment in this relationship with Pakistan and the Pakistani people, and we’ve worked very well with President Musharraf,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack asking him again to get back on the “pathway to democratic constitutional rule”.
“He’s been a good partner in fighting the war on terror, and, quite frankly, he has done a lot for the Pakistani people in putting it on a fundamentally different course than it had been prior to 2001. That’s been positive,” he said.
“We would like to see that continue, and that’s been our counsel to President Musharraf,” McCormack said and deputy secretary of State, John Negroponte, will deliver that message to the general.
“I’m not sure where these reports came from,” he said when asked to comment on a New York Times report saying Bush administration officials are losing faith that Musharraf can survive in office and have begun actively discussing what might come next.
But White House spokesman Dana Perino did not appear to be as enthusiastic in supporting Musharraf. “Let me make it very clear, the president is focused on the here and now,” she said when asked if there was any active planning on how to support a post-Musharraf government in Pakistan.
Bush’s policy “is to support President Musharraf getting back to a constitutional government, where there could be moderation and stability, democracy and the prosperity that comes from it. And we are focused on getting back on that track immediately.”
“It is up to President Musharraf, he has the responsibility to help restore democracy to the country, return to the constitution, to hold free and fair elections, to step down from the military and take off his uniform so that he can be a civilian president if he is confirmed by the Supreme Court,” Perino said.
Asked if US officials were trying to plan with Bhutto a post-Musharraf government, Perino said, “That I have not heard. Of course, we have been in communication with both President Musharraf and his officials, as well as opposition party candidates and leaders.
“What we have been working to get them to do is to talk with one another, open up a dialogue, and communicate so that they can get Pakistan back on a path on democracy. But I don’t know about any individual conversations,” she said.
The New York Times Thursday suggested that officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon had huddled Wednesday to decide what message Negroponte would deliver to General Musharraf – and perhaps more important, to Pakistan’s generals.
It cited administration officials as saying they still hope that Negroponte, who had last week cited Bush as describing Musharraf as “indispensable,” can salvage the fractured arranged marriage between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto.
If General Musharraf is forced from power, diplomats cited by Times said, it would most likely be in a gentle push by fellow officers, who would try to install a civilian president and push for parliamentary elections to produce the next prime minister, perhaps even Bhutto, despite past strains between her and the military.
But the diplomats also warned that removing the general might not be that easy. Army generals are unlikely to move against General Musharraf unless certain “red lines” are crossed, such as countrywide political protests or a real threat of a cutoff of American military aid to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates too suggested that Musharraf’s “ability to continue to be a partner in the war on terror very much depends on how events unfold over the next few weeks in Pakistan.”
Appearing with him at a Pentagon news conference, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, said, “We’d certainly like to see the emergency measures end as soon as possible, but I believe that militarily the situation is stable,”
There are no major changes to Washington’s military relations with Pakistan, he said, and US officials are satisfied that Pakistani nuclear weapons are under sufficient security.
While there has been a lot of discussion about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, “I’d like to be very clear, I don’t see any indication right now that security of those weapons is in jeopardy,” he said. But “US officials are watchful, as they should be.”
Military-to-military contacts between the United States and Pakistan continue, Mullen said. “I see no disruption to that because the emergency measures are in place,” he said.
The admiral also said he sees no indication of, nor does he anticipate, an interruption in the supply line through Pakistan to US forces fighting in Afghanistan.