The United States has asked Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to quickly shed his uniform and restore democracy, with President George W Bush warning that Washington would deal with the situation if the Pakistani military ruler fails to take his "advice".
The Bush Administration said it would be watching the developments in Pakistan over the next few days and decide on action, including a re-look at aid.
In his first public comments since the imposition of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday, Bush expressed hope that Musharraf would restore democracy as "quickly as possible".
Bush said he had asked Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to call up Musharraf and convey that "we expect there to be elections as soon as possible and that the President (Musharraf) should remove his military uniform."
"I certainly hope he does take my advice," he told journalists at the White House.
Bush said Washington would work with Musharraf as well as others in the Pakistani government to "make it abundantly clear the position of the United States. And then, obviously, we'll deal with it if something other than that happens."
He, however, declined to say what the US will do by way of assistance if the General defied American advice.
Rice, who spoke to Musharraf while returning to Washington from Middle East, made it clear that the US was deeply disappointed and wanted the General to rescind the decision as well as hold elections as scheduled in January.
On suspending aid to Pakistan, a US official said "we are looking at all of those to see if there are automatic triggers... that have been triggered by the actions taken that would require some kind of cut-off in assistance, because obviously we want to comply with the law."
"... there are questions about the future of our aid and assistance. But what we're looking for now in the next several days, some time in the course of this week, we would hope there's some clarification on the intentions of the government and we've made clear the direction on which we think they ought to proceed," the official added.
The official said Musharraf has made a "mistake" and that the US would work with Islamabad to get things "back on track".
At the same time, Bush praised Musharraf's role in the war on terror and said the US wants to continue working with him in this regard.
"President Musharraf has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals... he understands the dangers posed by radicals and extremists," Bush said.
"We want to continue working with him to fight these terrorists and extremists who not only have tried to kill him, but who use parts of his country from which to launch attacks into Afghanistan and/or are plotting attacks on America," he said.
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