LAHORE, Feb 23: The Awami National Party has urged Gen Pervez Musharraf to introduce 'undiluted' democracy to eliminate extremism to foil international conspiracies and avert pressure on country's nuclear assets.

According to party secretary-general Ehsan Wyne, the only excuse the US can put forward against the assets is that these can fall into the hands of extremists. He said to check any such situation, the authorities must introduce pure democracy without any suffix attached to it.

The process would eliminate extremist elements promoting political parties which were progressive, thus preempting all pretexts that could be employed to force Islamabad surrender its nuclear capability. But, he regretted, that Gen Musharraf was using religious alliance -- MMA -- in two provinces (the NWFP and Balochistan) as well as in the Centre to prolong his hold on the country.

Wyne said Germany, the World Bank and other international institutions were appreciating the performance of the MMA government in the NWFP and extending funds to its various projects for helping religious elements come into the mainstream politics, shunning its fundamentalist approach. Otherwise these were the fundamentalists who were frightening the United States, he said.

The ANP leader also urged Gen Musharraf to prefer national security while tackling the Iran issue and should not go against America as was being advocated by fundamentalists.

"These fundamentalists have always believed in superstitions and resultantly have got destroyed Afghanistan as well as Iraq by inciting the people to stand against the US without matching their power with its military might."

Being Muslims, Pakistanis should take care of interests of the Ummah but not at the cost of their own country, he said. He appealed to Irani rulers to avert a US attack and save their people from destruction by finding some honourable solution to its nuclear capability issue. Diplomatic channels should be used for avoiding any impasse in talks on the subject, he said.

The ANP secretary-general saw international conspiracies in the ongoing Balochistan crisis, and urged the federal government to observe restraint in conducting any army operation there.

He believed that even if a single bullet was fired, the situation would worsen and the army would be unable to control it.He suggested elimination of deprivations of the Balochis instead of an army operation for taming them. He said the Sardars whom the government was blaming for the crisis had been reared by army dictators.

"Like the US feels itself with dictators, the latter think that they can settle things more easily with Sardars and feudal lords instead of real representatives of the masses," he said.