London: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today asked Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to remove all barriers and obstructions for the conduct of a free and fair elections in the country.

"It is very important that Pakistan elections are free and fair and everything is done to show the international community that barriers and obstructions that existed a few weeks ago to the polls are removed," Brown told his monthly press conference at 10, Downing Street. Elections in Pakistan are slated to be held on February 18.

The British Prime Minister said, "it is tragic that we have faced assassination of Benazir Bhutto, it is tragic that there have been so much of loss of life in the country...that there is so much of controversy over what has happened when Bhutto died. What is why I asked the Metropolitan Police to provide some help to the Pakistani authorities in investigating what happened."

"President Musharraf has withdrawn the State of Emergency and has released a large number of prisoners. He has made arrangement for elections to go ahead," Brown told the conference.

"This election has to be properly monitored because there are several thousand polling stations in the country and we will be insistent that if the elections are to be held valid by the international community it has got to be held in a free and fair way," he added.

Source : PTI