SLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State John
Negroponte met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for two hours Saturday in a bid to urge the president to help stabilize the growing unrest in his country.
John Negroponte will suggest to Pakistan''s president that he end emergency rule, State Department
officials said.
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The U.S. envoy was expected to deliver a strong message of growing impatience from the United States, urging Musharraf to end his emergency decree and prepare for free elections.
So far, Musharraf has not shown any indication he will take the American advice.
Musharraf, who issued the emergency order on November 3, swore in seven hand-picked allies into a caretaker government on Friday despite an earlier pledge to include "people of a neutral band."
Negroponte was expected to warn Musharraf during the meeting that his base was rapidly eroding and unless he lifts the state of emergency, takes off the uniform and sets a date for elections, there would be little the United States could do to help.
The U.S. envoy was expected to push for a specific date for elections and a commitment to lift the emergency before then, officials said.
Negroponte also met with Army Vice Chair Ashfaq Kiani, who is expected to take Musharraf''s place as head of the military, which holds a lot of influence over Musharraf.
U.S. State Department officials said the meeting was a way to apply pressure on Musharraf and that the United States may appeal to the army to help solve the crisis.
Officials said Negroponte would continue to push Musharraf for a deal with opposition leader Benazir
Bhutto and see what it would take for a deal to go forward, as it represents the greatest chances for stability in Pakistan.
Bhutto, who spoke by phone with Negroponte after his arrival in Pakistan on Friday, reiterated her call for Musharraf to step down as president, pledging to "mount public pressure" against him.
A State Department official said Bhutto asked Negroponte to use U.S. aid as leverage to force Musharraf to meet her demands.
U.S. State Department spokesman Scott McCormack said that Negroponte discussed with Bhutto "the importance of moderate forces working together in Pakistan for a better future for Pakistan, and also to get Pakistan back on the pathway to constitutional and democratic rule."
"Our hope is -- for Pakistan and for the Pakistani people -- that Pakistan can resume that course," he said in Washington. "In order to do that, it''s our assessment that those moderate forces within Pakistani
political society are going to need to work together, not only to get back to that point where you have constitutional democratic rule, but for the day after and the day after that."
Bhutto, speaking to PBS'' "New Hour with Jim Lehrer" prior to her conversation with Negroponte, said that a request from the American diplomat to "get back on track with Musharraf" would not be granted.
"I''ve spent 18 months talking to General Musharraf," the former prime minister said. And at the last minute, he dumped the road map to democracy and went back to military dictatorship. And I ask myself, does he simply want to engage me in talks, which will again lead nowhere?"
Saying Musharraf''s promises have been "too vague, too generalized, too little, too late, raising hopes, dashing them, raising hopes, dashing them," she said that Negroponte should "discuss an exit strategy" with the Pakistani president.
"He''s not a bad man," she said. "He''s not an unreasonable man. I''ve met him. I''ve talked to him. So he must think of Pakistan now. And if it''s in Pakistan''s best interest, he must quit. But there needs to bhutto, whose two stints as prime minister were plagued with accusations of corruption, said it was "unlikely" her Pakistan Peoples'' Party''s participation would participate in coming parliamentary elections, which Musharraf has promised will take place before January 9.
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