Pakistan is âundergoing a transition from an unstable, corrupt and personality-centred âkleptocracyâ to a more sustainable, transparent and institutionalised democracy,â Pakistanâs US Ambassador Jehangir Ashraf Qazi said on Monday. In a letter published in the New York Times on Monday, Mr Qazi took issue with the newspaper which had said in an earlier report that Pakistani politics was âdifficult to decodeâ and the immediate challenge was to âdiscover what is really going on thereâ. Mr Qazi writes that what is going on in Pakistan âshould be plain enoughâ and then goes on to stress how General Pervez Musharraf was trying to transform Pakistan into an âinstitutionalised democracyâ.
| I guess it's "plain enough" if you're Anna Comnena or Theodosius. To the rest of us, it's tough to follow... |
âVery significant successes have been achieved in the war on terror, in economic reform, in overcoming the impasse in parliament, in securing borders, in combating domestic extremists and in reducing tensions along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir,â he added. The ambassador said that âthe priceâ paid for these efforts has come in the form of âthe elevated risk to the president, as the recent attacks on him demonstrateâ, adding that these attacks have only âreinforced the determination of the president, the prime minister and the people of Pakistan to root out extremism and violenceâ.
| ... which is a way of life for a significant portion of the Pakistani population. |
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