Tokyo: Bangladesh's foreign minister today welcomed Pakistan's election, rejecting suggestions the defeat of President Pervez Musharraf's allies spelled instability in the sensitive region.

Foreign Minister Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said the Pakistani polls also had lessons for Bangladesh, where he said the military-backed government was taking its time to ensure eventual elections are smooth. "In Pakistan, the people have spoken," Chowdhury told reporters on a visit to Tokyo. "The successful exercise of democracy cannot -- must not -- be seen to be destabilising to the rest of the world."

"The Pakistani people have the right to choose the government of their own as they have done," he said. The Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the parliamentary backer of President Pervez Musharraf, was crushed after a bloody electoral campaign that included the assassination of rival Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf, while a key US ally in the "war on terror," has faced resentment for failing to curb a wave of violence blamed on Islamist rebels. Muslim-majority Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in 1971 after a bloody nine-month war. Bangladesh's military intervened in January 2007 to cancel elections amid intense feuding between the two major parties, whose leaders have both since faced graft probes.

The interim government has pledged to clean up Bangladesh's notoriously corrupt politics before holding elections by the end of 2008.

Source : PTI