AMBASSADOR ASHRAF J. QAZI'S LETTER TO NEW YORK TIMES ON JANUARY 19, 2004

"The Musharraf Mysteries" (editorial, Dec 27) says that "Pakistani politics are difficult to decode” and that the immediate challenge is to “discover what is really going on there.”

What is going on should be plain enough. The country is undergoing a transition from an unstable, corrupt and personality-centered “kleptocracy” to a more sustainable, transparent and institutionalized democracy.

President Pervez Musharraf has accepted these challenges on behalf of the longer-term interest of Pakistan. As a result, very significant successes have been achieved in the war on terror, in economic reform, in overcoming the impasse in parliament, in securing borders, in combating domestic extremists and in reducing tension along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

The price, of course, has been the elevated risk to the President, as the recent attacks on him demonstrate. These attacks have only reinforced the determination of the President, the Prime Minister and the people of Pakistan to root out extremism and violence.

ASHRAF J QAZI

AMBASSADOR OF PAKISTAN

WASHINGTON, DC