On Board President’s Plane, June 5: The Almaty conference is a great diplomatic victory for Pakistan as the participants fully appreciated Islamabad’s stand to resolve all controversial issues with India peacefully and through dialogue, said President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

“The whole world is disappointed and dismayed over the belligerent attitude of the Indians but this is very gratifying for us that Pakistan’s efforts for de-escalation had been widely acknowledged by 14 countries out of 16 members of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA),” he further said.

Talking to reporters in his plane while returning from Almaty to Islamabad late Tuesday evening, he pointed out that the new effective forum of CICA had been created and Pakistan was its founding member to play an active role for promoting political and economic interests of member states.

“Everybody observed India’s isolation in the Almaty conference,” the president said, adding that Russian President Putin was particularly disappointed over India’s refusal to sort out issues through dialogue. “I have been invited by Mr Putin to visit Russia and I have accepted his offer and I am sure it will increase political and economic cooperation between the two countries.”

When asked whether the outcome of the conference would lead to further tension with India, the president said he did not think so. “The world is interested in de-escalation and the good thing is that pressure is mounting on India to sort out issues through dialogue,” he said, adding that today the United States, Russia, China, the European Union (EU), CICA, the OIC and all other international forums were seeking peaceful resolution of issues between India and Pakistan.

“But it looks as if India is in deep trouble and wants some face-saving to pull back its troops from the borders,” the president maintained.

Responding to a question, Musharraf said he did not believe that there would be a war with India, but hastened to add, “If war is thrust on us we will respond with full force.” He said had Pakistan been so weak India would have attacked by now, and remarked that everyone knew that without certain give and take no issue could be settled.