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WASHINGTON: The United States has urged the government of Pakistan not to impede peaceful democratic activities.
The department’s spokesman Robert Wood told a briefing that US special envoy Richard Holbrooke spoke with President Zardari and PM Gilani and conveyed this message to them.
Wood said US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, met the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif in Lahore on Wednesday and conveyed a similar message to him.
‘The point that Ambassador Patterson, as well as Ambassador Holbrooke, made is that we want to see the situation dealt with in accordance with the rule of law in Pakistan, that violence be avoided, and that any impediments to peaceful and democratic activities not be put in place,’ said Wood.
When asked about the rounding up of lawyers and political workers, Wood said: ‘We’re still trying to formulate a good assessment, but obviously, the fact that these calls were placed means that we are concerned about the situation and we want to make sure that no violence takes place.’
Wood said that the US wanted to make sure and make clear to everyone that peaceful, democratic activity needs to take place. But he reiterated that: ‘Violence is something we don’t need.’
US expands contacts with Pakistani leaders
‘There were some additional contacts,’ said the state department’s deputy spokesman Gordon Duguid. ‘The United States is continuing our dialogue with the main actors, the political figures in Pakistan.’
Diplomatic circles in Washington, however, say that the Americans are upset with the Pakistani government for starting an ‘unnecessary crisis’ at a stage when both Washington and the Pakistani military want to focus on fighting the militants.
The crisis has further highlighted the judicial issue, which is particularly embarrassing for the United States. So far the Americans have not supported the demand for the restoration of the pre-Nov, 3, 2007 judiciary.
But Sharifs’ dismissal has further popularized the issue, making it more difficult for external or internal forces to oppose the restoration.
This has prompted reports in the media that the Americans are now supporting the chief justice’s reinstatement, albeit with truncated powers.
Diplomatic observers also say that while the Americans are not talking about their contacts with the Pakistani military, senior officials have stayed in touch with the Pakistani generals as well.
The observers say that the United States and the Pakistani military establishment agree on one key point: the current political dispute cannot be allowed to continue.
According to these observers, Washington will however continue to oppose a military takeover even if the situation worsens and instead would favor a constitutional arrangement for dealing with it.
At least one senior US expert - Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations who also advises the State Department on South Asian affairs - has, however, urged Washington not to oppose a military takeover, should it happen.
Instead, he suggested seeking a foolproof guarantee from the military that it will come only for a brief period and will return to the barracks after bringing yet another civilian setup, possibly a government of national consensus.
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sherry Rehman was reported to have resigned late on Friday night but there has been no official confirmation as yet and conflicting reports have emerged.
According to the widely circulated reports, Sherry Rehman, in a dramatic late-night development, resigned following differences over government’s handling of the electronic media and insistence by President Asif Zardari and his close aides to impose further restrictions on private news channels.
But presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar has rejected these reports, terming the news of her resignation false and baseless, according to the Daily Times.
Meanwhile, BBC Urdu has also reported that news of Sherry Rehman’s resignation is in fact incorrect.
Highly-placed sources had told Dawn that Ms Rehman had a series of heated arguments with senior members of the government when some television channels were ‘penalised’ for airing what were perceived as anti-government views during the lawyers’ long march.
The sources said that when Ms Rehman failed to persuade President Zardari and other members of his team and when she was cornered by some members and even blamed for her failure to ‘control’ the media, she decided to quit the coveted post of information minister.
Despite repeated attempts Dawn could not get in touch with Sherry Rehman.
Ms Rehman was regarded as one of the most prominent members of the federal cabinet and she had, for the past one year, single-handedly tackled the print and electronic media, sometimes in a very hostile environment.
But some members of the government had been opposed to her and had campaigned to dislodge her.
The former journalist kept on ignoring the moves, but then Sherry Rehman finally decided to quit when her request to go soft on the media failed, the sources added.
PRAGUE: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi complained of ‘alienation’ resulting from US drone strikes on his country on Friday, a day after a suspected US strike killed 24 people in the Kurram tribal region.
‘There is collateral damage that accompanies these attacks, and it leads to alienation,’ he said after meeting European Union officials in Prague.
‘If we want a success in this fight against extremism and terrorism, we have to carry the people along,’ added Mr Qureshi, whose country is a key regional ally of the US.
Mr Qureshi praised unmanned drones whose missiles destroyed a Taliban training camp in northwest Pakistan on Thursday as ‘superior technology’ that can ‘take out high-value targets,’ but he also warned the US to weigh the pros and cons of its tactics.
‘The US government should weigh the advantages with the disadvantages. If these disadvantages outweigh the advantages, we feel there is a case to review the strategy,’ he said.
The US military as a rule does not confirm drone attacks but the armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.
More than 30 such strikes have killed over 330 people since August 2008, shortly before key Washington ally President Asif Ali Zardari was elected.
ISLAMABAD: Political uncertainty loomed large on the horizon in the federal capital as, after the day-long efforts by senior party members, back-channel diplomacy by well-wishers, and not so veiled efforts by the top military commander, to broker a deal failed to produce any concrete results to defuse the prevailing crisis.
At the end of a day of intense politicking and speculations, and after a midnight meeting at the Presidency, the word from the official quarters was that there was no question of giving any concessions to the PML-N if it was not prepared to back-off from the lawyers Long March. In other words: a complete deadlock.
A highly placed source in the government told Dawn that the late night meeting largely dealt with the law and order situation. During the meeting advisor on interior Rehman Malik present his report on the situation, and how his team intends to block the lawyers from marching up to Islamabad.
The government is under pressure to find a political solution to the crisis. With clear signs of the ongoing confrontation turning more violent in the coming days, the chief of the army staff, General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, separately met both Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari. This was also his second meeting with the PM in three days, mainly aimed at preventing the current situation from spiraling out of control.
There were talks of a near agreement on a PM sponsored package, which envisaged the lifting of governor’s rule in Punjab and convening of the provincial assembly session to allow legislators to elect the new chief minister. There was also talk of the possible replacement of Governor Salman Taseer, whom the opposition PML-N regards as the main irritant, and restarting dialogue on the fate of the deposed judges, including chief justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chauhdry.
But by late evening, all hopes of a possible breakthrough fell apart as, according to a high level government source, the message from the PML-N was that it was not prepared to given any concessions unless the government agreed to restore the deposed chief justice.
Sources said that this was enough to annoy President Zardari, who was already adamant to go ahead with his earlier decisions of using strong-arm tactics to deal with the lawyers and opposition members.
Sources said that the PM lost hope of a breakthrough, at least for the time being, when President Zardari declared that concessions could not be given to the PML-N unless it agrees to disassociate itself from the lawyers’ Long March - a condition that was not acceptable to Nawaz Sharif and other opposition members.
Coinciding with these developments was a statement by the Punjab governor Salman Taseer, declaring that governor’s rule will not be lifted nor will any concessions be given to the PML-N.
Meanwhile there were reports that the government was also considering imposition of restrictions on media by promulgating an ordinance through Pakistan and Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra). Blocking transmissions of three private TV channels in various areas of the country is a clear indication that the government wants to impose restrictions on the media and there will be no immediate resolution of the political crisis in the country.
However, Pemra’s issued a press release saying that the government has not issued any instruction to any cable operator to remove any channel from the cable network.
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