NEW YORK, Jan 21: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday that the United States was fully supportive of President Pervez Musharraf, saying that "we believe that he is making the right decisions for his nation".

At a joint press conference with Indian External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha following his meeting with President Bush, Mr Powell stressed: "We support him (President Musharraf) and will continue to support him, and we hope and are confident that he and his security people will be able to round up those terrorists who don't want to see a better future for Pakistanis."

In reply to a question,he said: "We believe that the two recent coup attempts - or not coup attempts, but assassination attempts - fortunately failed, but it shows that there are still terrorists within his country that do not like what he is doing."

Applauding the new peace initiatives between India and Pakistan, Mr Powell noted that "as we saw at the Saarc meeting in Islamabad, he is stepping up to the challenge of improving relations with India, and as we also saw in the speech that he gave to parliament earlier this week, that he is prepared to speak out for what he knows is right for Pakistan."

Foreign Minister Sinha reaffirmed Mr Powell's concerns, saying that stability in Pakistan was very important "to carry forward the initiative which has been taken".