U.S. envoy John Negroponte said on Sunday he had urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to end emergency rule, warning it was "not compatible" with free and fair elections due by early January and would undermine them.
The U.S. deputy secretary of state, who met General Musharraf on Saturday, praised his role in the fight against al Qaeda and Taliban militants, saying Washington valued its partnership with its ally. But he bluntly called on him to lift emergency rule.
"Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible elections," Negroponte, the United States' No.2 diplomat, told a news conference at the U.S. embassy.
Negroponte said he had also called on Musharraf to release thousands of opposition figures who have been rounded up and imprisoned, and to stick to his word to quit as army chief.
"If those steps aren't taken, it will certainly undermine the government's ability to conduct satisfactory elections," he said.
Musharraf has promised elections will be held by Jan. 9, and has said he is determined to remove his army uniform and be sworn in as a civilian president once a pending Supreme Court ruling on his October re-election is out.
But he has not yet said when he will end emergency rule and reinstate the suspended constitution, or free hundreds of detained lawyers including the former chief justice -- moves analysts said were aimed at holding onto power.
Musharraf has also slapped curbs on the media, punishable by up to three years in jail, and two leading private news stations say they have been forced to close down altogether. Broadsheet The News said Musharraf was verging on "madness".
"It is high time he ended this draconian reign of terror against his own people, the media and its institutions and stepped aside," the paper wrote in a scathing editorial.
