No emergency in Pak, thanks to US

Islamabad, Aug 10: The United States played a key role in steering Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf away from declaring a state of emergency in the country, local media reports said today.

The acknowledgement of this role came from no less a person than President George W Bush himself who urged the Pakistani leader to focus on free and fair elections in his country, Dawn newspaper reported.

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Mr Bush said in Washington his focus, in terms of the domestic scene in Pakistan, was that Islamabad hold free and fair elections and ''that's what we've been talking to him about and hopeful they will.'' US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had also telephoned Gen Musharraf and discussed Pakistan's internal political situation.

Sources told UNI that Ms Rice expressed Washington's concerns over the reports on possible imposition of emergency in Pakistan.

''They talked about the ongoing political developments in Pakistan.

They had a good conversation,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was quoted, as saying.

Ms Rice made two telephone calls, the first on Wednesday evening and the second on yesterday morning, the newspaper quoted diplomatic sources, as saying, Facing serious political crisis, Gen Musharraf had been under tremendous US pressure for holding free and fair elections and a decisive military action against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants regrouping on Pakistan soil.

UNI