Unwilling to take a position on the political development in Pakistan, the United States has said it will rather be an observer than a direct participant in negotiations which could see a 'deal' between President Pervez Musharraf and former premier Benazir Bhutto.
"There's a lot of discussions going on and there are a lot of statements being made about what the nature of those discussions are. These are issues that the Pakistani leadership is dealing with. And I think we'll let them actually reach agreements or come to conclusions before I try and step in the middle of it," US State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said.
"I think we're looking closely at what is going on in the Pakistani political process. But I think we'd like to be observers rather than direct participants at this point."
Asserting that the primary concern for the US in Pakistan is that there be "free, credible and transparent" elections, Casey said the Bush administration was in touch with all political parties but the whole process was for the Pakistanis to work through on their own.
"There is, not surprisingly, a lot of politics going on in Pakistan and among Pakistani officials and Pakistani party representatives. What I think we want to see, though, is an end result of those conversations being a process that's credible, bring elections that give the Pakistani people a real choice, and allow that choice to be heard through a free and fair ballot, and see a government formed that's going to have the support of the people and going to allow Pakistan to continue to be a force for positive change and a force to help work with us to fight against extremism," he said.
The deputy spokesman was non-committal on the US's position on whether Musharraf should step down from his army post.
"President Musharraf has made certain commitments with regard to his status as army chief, and these are issues that we expect he and others in Pakistani political system will continue to deal with as we approach the election," Casey replied to a question on the issue.
"We want to see this worked out in a way that allows for a set of free and fair elections and one that's credible in the eyes of the Pakistani people. But the specific details of how many of these issues are going to be worked out are ones that for the moment I think we'll just leave to the Pakistanis to discuss," he said.
