January 25, 2008	Friday	Muharram 15, 1429

NEW YORK, Jan 24: President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday dismissed Western concerns over recent turmoil in Pakistan as “minor irritants,” assuring his cooperation with any elected government following Feb 18 elections.

In an interview with Wall Street Journal in Davos, the president “defiantly rejected concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed state”.

He also rejected talk that the US could send forces into Pakistan after terrorist leaders, saying ‘the real battle’ was in Afghanistan. “Please differentiate Pakistan from banana republics” where a lowly colonel can take over the state. “These things don't happen in Pakistan,” he said. “Pakistan is a nuclear state”.

Mr Musharraf described the US-Pakistan relationship as strategic and said the idea that a few US forces could succeed in Pakistan’s mountains better than 100,000 Pakistani troops was “sadly mistaken”.

“The real battle is not in Pakistan,” but in Afghanistan, he said, adding that Pakistan’s troops weren’t primarily engaged in looking for Al Qaeda leaders, but rather Taliban extremists.

He acknowledged that there was “confusion” in the immediate aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination over how she was killed.

“The reality is that this suicide bomber and the person who fired the shots — I can't even say if it was one or two people — were on the left. She died because of a skull injury on the right, this is true.

How this happened is a mystery,” he said, adding that Scotland Yard hasn't yet given him its conclusions.