Washington: The George W Bush administration has hailed the conduct of elections in Pakistan.

However, US has stopped short of commenting on the fairness of the polls.

''We are pleased that elections have been conducted in Pakistan. This is an important step in the path towards an elected civilian democracy that reflects the choices of the Pakistani people,'' Nicole Thompson, Duty Press Officer at the State Department said.

''We and others in the international community have stressed the importance of having a free, fair and transparent election process as possible,'' she added.

There are many international and independent Pakistani monitoring missions in place, and the administration looks forward to reviewing all of their assessments in the days ahead, Thompson said.

''We will await for the final election result and the chance to review the monitoring groups reports before commenting further on the process,'' the senior official added.

Source : PTI