President George W Bush on Wednesday personally informed Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that he must fulfill his promise to hold parliamentary elections and give up the post as army chief.
“You can’t be the President and the head of the military at the same time.” Bush said he told General Musharraf in a telephonic conversation. “I had a very frank discussion with him.”
The White House has come under fire for treating General Musharraf, an ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, with kid gloves Bush was asked by a reporter why he had come down hard on the military junta in Burma and had not yet given a pass to General Musharraf.
Addressing reporters along side French President Nicolas Sarkozy at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia’s, Bush said he had spoken to General Musharraf earlier in the day. “And my message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform,” he said.
Bush said his “objective is the same in Burma as it is in Pakistan, and that is to promote democracy.” But he added: “There is a difference, however. Pakistan has been on the path to democracy; Burma hadn’t been on the path to democracy. And it requires different tactics to achieve the common objective.
