News APP

NewsApp (Free)

Read news as it happens
Download NewsApp
Home  » News » Rice may have prevented Pak emergency: Report

Rice may have prevented Pak emergency: Report

Source: PTI
August 11, 2007 00:54 IST
Get Rediff News in your Inbox:
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf decided against imposing a state of emergency in the country apparently after receiving two telephone calls from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Rice spoke to Musharraf first in the middle of the Wednesday night when speculation was rife about declaration of an emergency in Pakistan and then later in the afternoon on Thursday, Dawn daily reported on Friday.

Besides Rice, some top officials of the European Union spoke to Musharraf to dissuade him from imposing emergency, it said.

Interestingly, while the US embassy confirmed Rice's telephone calls to the Pakistan President, government officials remained tight-lipped about it. There was no word about it either from the Foreign Office or the Presidency.

US embassy spokesperson, Elizabeth Colton, said that Rice spoke to Musharraf twice.

However, she declined to go into the specifics of their conversation, the newspaper reported. There were other late-night diplomatic efforts as well from some key world capitals to dissuade Musharraf from seriously considering the option of emergency, it said.

"It was not just the US intervention but there was a lot of diplomatic and political effort from other ends also to try and dissuade the President from imposing emergency," it quoted an unnamed official as saying.
Get Rediff News in your Inbox:
Source: PTI© Copyright 2024 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.