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Pak. concedes E.U. team's demand

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD Sept. 6. The row between the Pakistan Government and the team of election observers from the European Union (E.U.) has been partly resolved with the decision of the Pakistan Election Commission to provide them identity cards to move around freely during the Oct. 10 election.

The advance team of the E.U., which is here for over three weeks now, has been engaged in a war of words with the Government over their status. The Pakistan Foreign Office declined to entertain a request from the team for a formal memorandum of understanding (MoU) to provide them security and enable them to travel freely wherever they wanted.

The E.U. has announced that it intended to send the largest ever team of observers to oversee the elections.

The chief of observer team had said that the decision was an indication of the interest shown by the E.U. in the transfer of power from the military to a civilian set-up.

At one stage, the Foreign Office took serious exception to interviews in the media by the Chief Observer of the E.U. team, John Cushnahan, raising questions about their status and security.

The Foreign Office maintained that the E.U. team had come on its own and there was no question of extending it either a formal invitation or signing an MoU.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office had made it clear that it would be the same with regard to election observers from other bodies like the Commonwealth, Organisation of Islamic Conference and SAARC.

On Thursday, the Chief Election Commissioner, Irshad Hasan Khan, assured the Chief Observer of the E.U. team that the commission had taken adequate steps to hold the elections in a "free and fair" atmosphere. Mr. Cushnahan had called on him to discuss a host of issues related to the election.

The E.U. team is faced with a delicate situation as most of the mainstream parties have represented to it about the alleged "pre-election rigging and discriminatory approach" of the military Government towards various parties.

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