If Pakistan President Pervez Musharaf imposes martial law in the country, it is possible that he could get away with US sanctions imposed against the country for at least a year, according to a former US diplomat.
The most recent US legislation asks the US President to give a yearly certification on the progress towards democracy as well as progress towards fighting international terrorism.
In terms of priorities, democracy is a long term goal of United States Markey, who served in the Policy Planning Bureau of the State Department from 2003 to 2007 and he is now a Senior Fellow on South Asia with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), had recently advised President Bush that “trying to force a rapid transition to democracy (in Pakistan) would be counterproductive.”
“Even if Musharraf imposes emergency or martial law, I don’t see the Bush administration taking any immediate action for may be another year or so,” Markey, as saying. Markey has been stating that any drastic remedy by Musharraf would confront the Bush administration with an extreme dilemma in terms of choosing between its immediate objective of defeating terrorism on Pakistani soil and in the neighbouring Afghanistan or choosing the establishment of democracy. “I think the President (Bush) would defer any decision until then,” he said, adding: “Sanctions are not a practical choice at this time because the United States would like to continue intelligence and military partnership with Pakistan.”
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