EU team's talks with Musharraf 'frank, honest'

The European Union (EU) has categorically told the government here that it will be seriously disappointed if the military authorities in Pakistan do not hold provincial and general elections on a party basis within the Supreme Court timetable.

Elections within the time-frame was perhaps the only condition that the EU delegation set during its high-level contact with Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf and others in the just concluded two-day visit of the EU troika mission to Pakistan. But the EU is hardly concerned with the politicians outbursts against the accountability process or the NAB ordinance.

In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, head of the EU delegation Dominique Girard, who is also assistant secretary for Asia in the French ministry of foreign affairs, found his meeting with Gen. Musharraf as frank and honest. The delegation discussed with him, in addition to the question of democracy, the Afghanistan and Kashmir issue, Pakistan's relations with India and the nuclear non-proliferation. The EU got nothing, though on the demand to Islamabad on the CTBT signature.

Girard summed up the EU visit to Pakistan as good. "I was satisfied with my meeting with General Musharraf because obviously it was a good meeting frank and honest. But we have our differences. We have differing views on important topics and we were here to discuss those. We were here not to resolve every thing and not to come in agreement with the government here on all the topics. We very much think it was a good idea to have this visit."

Asked how the EU would react, if elections were not called within the time-frame, Girard answered: "We will be disappointed. That is clear. One of the reasons why we are here was to explain to the Pakistani friends that we consider important that the electoral process - the process to return to democracy - must be completed as soon as possible. So we certainly would be very disappointed if it did not happen."

Replying to a question on how strong Gen. Musharraf's assurance to the EU was that he would restore democracy within the time-table set by the Supreme Court, Girard offered a rather lengthy explanation.

"This is something interesting that came out of this visit. In announcing that not only the local but general elections will be held within the time-frame, he (General Musharraf) was quite clear. He was clear that those elections would include participation of the political parties. So that is something which is good news. We were told in addition that the preparation for provincial and general elections would start immediately after the completion of local elections."