WASHINGTON (AFP) — Key US diplomats dealing with Pakistan have personally urged the leaders in Islamabad and their opponents to avoid violence amid growing political agitation, a US official said Thursday.
"We wanted just to make sure and make clear to everyone that peaceful, democratic activity needs to take place in Pakistan. Violence is something we don't need," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.
Wood said US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke made the point in phone calls Thursday to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, also urged efforts to avoid violence when she met Wednesday in Lahore with main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who is locked in a showdown with Zardari.
Sharif has urged the masses to rise up against the civilian government, which has failed to stem a political crisis, the economic meltdown and Islamist violence.
"The point that Ambassador Patterson made, as well as Ambassador Holbrooke, is that we want to see the situation dealt with in accordance to the rule of law in Pakistan, that violence be avoided, and that any impediments to peaceful and democratic activities not be put in place," Wood said.
Pakistan police on Thursday stopped activists from leaving the country's biggest city of Karachi, heightening tensions at the start of a mass anti-government march which has seen hundreds of demonstrators rounded up.
With nuclear-armed Pakistan in fresh crisis, lawyers, opposition supporters and civil activists planned to drive 1,500 kilometers (940 miles) from Karachi to Islamabad to demand that Zardari reinstate sacked judges.
Wood said "we're continuing to watch the situation."
"And we will continue to engage the government of Pakistan in discussions, as well as other parties, to try to make sure that ... what transpires in Pakistan is dealt with ... within the content of Pakistan's constitution," Wood said.
US President Barack Obama has pledged a new focus in bringing stability to Pakistan, a key ally in the "war on terror" but beset by crisis, propped up by international loans and weakened by conflict with Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked extremists.
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