NEW DELHI, April 3: Going by the way he likes to target Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani, President Pervez Musharraf speaks like an Indian opposition leader, according to the only response so far available from any official quarter to a wide-ranging interview Gen Musharraf gave at the weekend to The Hindu, the newspaper said on Wednesday.

The Hindu quoted “highly placed government sources” as saying that the Pakistan president had taken “extreme positions” on several issues concerning India. “The sources said that India wanted Pakistan to take certain steps to show that it was sincere in its fight against terrorism,” The Hindu said.’

“How should we judge Pakistan? We have to see their actions on the ground and not mere rhetoric. The list of 20 wanted criminals was one such litmus test. Infiltration from across the border is still continuing and terrorist training camps have again started,” the sources said refusing to elaborate, according to the newspaper.

“The sources also said that Gen Musharraf’s remarks on the Home Minister, L.K. Advani, showed that he was ‘speaking like an Indian opposition leader’,” The Hindu said. President Musharraf had also criticzed Indian defence Minister George Fernandes in his interview with The Hindu editor Malini Parthasarthy, the only one he has given to an Indian journalist since Sept 11.

“If you see any statement of Mr George Fernandes, Mr Advani, these two specially, they were so offensive and they were so insulting... I wouldn’t say the same about the Foreign Minister (Jaswant Singh). He is diplomatic, he is a diplomat and he ought to be diplomatic,” President Musharraf had said in his interview. Asked if he was implying that there is a distinction being made by Pakistan portraying Indian prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh as being the doves and Advani and the others as hawks, President Musharraf had aid:

“Yes, indeed, I really think so because I have no doubts. I mean, is there a doubt in that? Look at what I have seen with my own eyes... This is not an information to me. It is my first-hand information. Now I sat with Prime Minister Vajpayee and for two days we thrashed out a Declaration. The language of it, the paragraphing of it, was discussed between me and Prime Minister Vajpayee. We then included Mr Jaswant Singh and Mr Sattar and the four of us agreed to a text including the wordings, including the wordings, I repeat....

“So I am very clear that these two, which is the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, accepted and there was no difference of opinion between me and them. We accepted this. Now what more can I say now? So therefore I am very clear that, whether you call them moderates or doves or whatever you may call them, I don’t know what you would like to call them, but I would like to call them very realistic and very pragmatic and then there is somebody behind the scene whoever it is, and I personally think it was Mr Advani.”