RAWALPINDI, Feb 13: President General Pervez Musharraf said on Monday that he supported plans to build a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India, despite opposition from the United States.

“Pakistan wants gas and if Iran wants to sell, Pakistan would go ahead,” he told a group of American and Asian journalists, according to military spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan.

The president touched on various issues, particularly the Kashmir dispute, blasphemous cartoons, Balochistan situation, war on terrorism and regional cooperation.

He emphasized that Pakistan and India must seize the opportunity to address the Kashmir dispute which he said was ripe for resolution.

“Kashmir is absolutely ripe for a resolution; the people of both countries want peace, the people of Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control also want peace and the earthquake has brought people closer. What more is required at this moment?” he asked.

He said that Kashmir was ripe for solution and the “US must contribute”. He hoped that US President George Bush, who is due in Pakistan next month, would understand the reality and play a facilitating role.

He reiterated that until Pakistan and India resolved Kashmir “we will not be able to have peace in the region”.

“Kashmir has been at the heart of conflict in South Asia, which became a nuclear flashpoint a few years back. It was an extremely dangerous situation, closest to a nuclear holocaust since World War II. Now we are trying to resolve our disputes. The leadership of the two countries has developed an understanding. The countries must address the lingering dispute now.”

In this context, he said, both countries would have to step back from their stated positions.

Pakistan, he maintained, would not move back from its stated stance unilaterally and said the two countries cannot go on indefinitely on confidence-building measures and must move forward on dispute resolution for long-term peace and development of the region.

“We are prepared to move forward if India also does the same.”

About terrorism and extremism, Gen Musharraf reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to combating both and called upon the international community to address the problems in a broader perspective.

“Terrorism has to be fought militarily, (but) extremism cannot be fought militarily because it is a state of mind and it has to be addressed through a separate strategy altogether and bring people to moderation.”

Answering a question about Iran’s nuclear standoff, he stressed a peaceful resolution of the issue. He said being the only superpower the US had the responsibility to resolve disputes in the world for the sake of peace and harmony.

The president pointed out that while India and Pakistan were engaged in a bilateral process to address the Kashmir dispute, the world’s concern to move ahead in the peace process was in no way violating bilateralism.

“They (the world) are not mediating, they are facilitating, forcing both sides to resolve the dispute and this is not a violation of the bilateralism.”

On the Islamabad-Washington ties, he said Pakistan was looking for a long-term and broad-based relationship with the United States. “Pakistan is looking for more trade and not aid as trade means investment and job creation.”

About the law and order situation in Balochistan, Gen Musharraf said only three tribal chiefs were trying to disrupt the process of development.

“There is no insurgency at all in the province – it is only these three tribal chiefs who are anti-development and do not want to see people having access to education and health facilities and come up at par with the developed parts of the country.”

The government, he said, would not allow anyone to challenge the writ of the law.

Referring to economic development, he said: “We have stabilized Pakistan economically and there is an economic upsurge as is evident from the unprecedented volume of traffic on our roads; the sale of cars has gone up by 600 per cent since 1999.”

BLASPHEMOUS CARTOONS: Referring to sacrilegious Cartoons, President Musharraf said the printing and reprinting of those caricatures was uniting moderate and radical Muslims in protests. He observed that the newspapers that had printed the caricatures were “being totally oblivious to the consequences for the world, for world peace and harmony.”