WASHINGTON, April 14: President Pervez Musharraf has ruled out a joint Pakistani-US military operation against insurgents trying to hide on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.
“The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it,” the president told American CBS news channel, while rejecting, “absolutely and totally,” the prospect of a joint operation to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan.
He said Pakistan was pursuing a correct strategy to fight terrorism. “Even if we are succeeding 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent, the direction is correct, the end goal is correct, the strategy is correct,” he said.
Responding to a question, he dismissed as ‘absolute nonsense’ Afghan President Hamid Karzai's allegation that Taliban leader Mulla Omar was hiding in Quetta. “He is in the south of Afghanistan somewhere. He is not in Pakistan, although President Karzai and everyone keeps saying he is in Quetta — absolute non-sense, absolute total nonsense -- he has never been in Pakistan. They are trying to make a scapegoat of Pakistan and we don’t like that at all.”
He said: “Pakistan is being maligned by the West unfairly because of lack of understanding of the environment and reality by President Karzai himself.”
When asked if he was angry with the Afghan leader, the president replied : “Yes, indeed, very angry.”
In response to a question about Al Qaeda leaders remaining ‘free to operate’ even after six years of counter-terrorism efforts by the international coalition, the president said: “They are in the mountains and there are people who support them and hide them. These mountains are inaccessible, even the British never went in.”
He brushed aside reports that US Vice-President Dick Cheney had visited Islamabad last month to ‘pressure’ the country to do more in the fight against terrorists.
“Is there an alternative?” the president asked when the interviewer suggested that partial success in the fight against terrorism meant partial failure.
