Common-wealth Secretary General said he was encouraged by the moves to restore democracy in Pakistan but expected President Musharraf to honour his promise to step down as head of the army by the end of this year.
In an interview broadcast by the BBC, the spokesperson of the Secretary General John Kabazi, when asked if Pakistan is suspended once again from the commonwealth, he said " well what the commonwealth say is that it be suspected or not, it is not for the Secretary General.
It is upto the ministers who will come together in the commonwealth, ministerial action group will take the decision. They will look on the constitution and the parliament. We will have to wait and see on that."
But the SG said that he expected Pakistan to observe in letter and spirit the constitution including the issue of separation of offices of the President and the army chief, it questioned.
John said: "What I am saying is that the SG did say the respect of the constitution or take it the parliament. The constitution of Pakistan does provide for these people to look at what I am saying and what the commonwealth is looking out is that they have done constitutionally as the parliament has voted. At the moment this has happened.
In 1999 as you said Pakistan was suspended and you know the democratic government was overthrown and the parliament was suspended, so the situations changed."
To a question that so the commonwealth is quite happy to have one of its members country that is led by effectively by a military president, John said " Well the commonwealth will look at the people to see what form of the government they feel they deserve and they want. You would surely know that within 53 members of the commonwealth.
There is a spectrum of different governments, some are parliamentary and some are presidential. They have various democratic institutions. When we are saying and we want in the commonwealth is return to a constitution and move for a democratic process."
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