DATE=3/26/2000 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=CLINTON - PAKISTAN (S-ONLY) NUMBER=2-260616 BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST DATELINE=GENEVA CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: White House officials are giving a mixed assessment of President Clinton's meeting in Islamabad Saturday with Pakistani military leader General Pervez Musharraf. VOA'S David Gollust reports from Geneva where Mr. Clinton is preparing to meet with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad. TEXT: A senior administration official says General Musharraf told the president he does not intend to hold power for long but would not give a specific date for an end to military rule. Mr. Clinton had pressed for a timetable for a return to democracy in both his meeting with the general who seized power last October and in a broadcast message to the Pakistani people. The senior official who spoke to reporters on the president's flight to Geneva said General Musharraf was candid and unpretentious in the hour and a half meeting and while he did not elaborate, he said the military leader accepted a lot of the goals Mr. Clinton set forth. The official said General Musharraf acknowledged that Osama Bin Laden, the Afghan based Muslim extremist blamed for anti-U-S terrorist acts, is a serious problem and that he would make significant efforts to bring him to justice. But he said it is disturbing that General Musharraf has twice postponed a promised trip to Afghanistan to take up the issue of Bin Laden directly with Afghanistan's Taleban leadership. (Signed) NEB/DAG/PLM 26-Mar-2000 06:14 AM EDT (26-Mar-2000 1114 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
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