The Pakistan Peoples' Party-led coalition government has sent an unambiguous message to the United States that any mess with the newly elected democratic dispensation by President Pervez Musharraf will not be tolerated.
The PPP leadership, however, held out a categorical assurance to the Bush administration that the new government would not create a situation leading to the unceremonious exit of Musharraf.
Two senior US State Department officials-- John Negroponte and Richard Boucher-- who dashed to Pakistan last week and met a number of coalition government leaders, were also told that the new government would counter terrorism and extremism through political means.
''Based on that understanding with the US, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani has announced to tackle the terrorism issue as the number one priority of the new government,'' sources said.
The coalition leadership also told the two US officials that the new government would review the awarding of an unprecedented 40-year-concession of Pakistan's lone deep sea Gwadar Port to a Singapore-based company, sensing that it was carried out in haste and without following laid down procedure.
The PPP's coalition partners-- the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Awami National Party -- feared that the Singapore-based firm was handpicked while there were two other major competitors including Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports Holdings and Dubai-based DP World.
