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US shows concern about Pak arrests

Carol Giacomo in United Nations

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has expressed concern about anti-democratic trends in Pakistan and resisted Islamabad's call for an early further easing of US sanctions, a US official said.

The US position was conveyed yesterday in a 45-minute meeting between Albright and Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz. The US side later described the meeting as 'frank', diplomatic code word for tough and pointed.

Albright met her Pakistani counterpart after holding talks with Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh on the fringes of the UN General Assembly.

She urged both India and Pakistan to resume a direct dialogue on bilateral issues like Kashmir soon after a new Indian government takes office next month.

Albright also pressed Pakistan to make good on a commitment to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, said the senior official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

In her meeting with Aziz, she objected to the September 25 arrests by the Pakistani police of several hundred people prior to a planned demonstration in Karachi, officials said.

They said she reinforced a state department statement accusing the Nawaz Sharief government of attempting to 'suppress a peaceful protest' and expressing fresh concern about ''mass arrests of opposition political party members in connection with peaceful demonstrations''.

''We support the strengthening of democracy in Pakistan and call upon Prime Minister Sharief and his government to carry out their responsibility to preserve the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly,'' it said.

Before the meeting, Aziz publicly announced that, despite a promise last year, Pakistan could not yet sign the CTBT because of a 'coercive environment'. This referred to US sanctions imposed because of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

Albright urged Pakistan to sign and ratify the treaty soon and told Aziz that because lifting sanctions depends on action by the US Congress, ''it is not possible... to give assurances,'' the official said.

She noted that since last year's nuclear tests, the United States had gone out of its way to help Pakistan, easing restrictions on trade assistance, reimbursing Islamabad for an aborted purchase of F-16 jets and supporting international loans to help boost Pakistan's troubled economy.

''So we believe that we are already moving toward that less coercive environment and we hope Pakistan would be able to respond with concrete steps of its own,'' she said, according to the senior official.

Albright renewed President Bill Clinton's vow to take a personal interest in encouraging India-Pakistan talks but repeated that Washington would not play a formal mediation role, as Islamabad wants and New Delhi opposes.

UNI

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