NEW YORK, Sept 27: Pakistan does not want its sovereignty violated by letting US troops hunt for Osama bin Laden and his associates on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, says President Pervez Musharraf.

Interviewed on CNN on Tuesday evening, he said Pakistan was quite capable of dealing with Osama wherever he was located.

“It’s a very sensitive issue,” the president said when asked if Pakistan would allow US troops to capture the Al Qaeda leader.

“We should not be discussing how and who is to deliver the blow, but whenever we locate him, we have to deal with him.

“And our decision is that we operate on our side of the border and US forces and allies operate on the other side,” he added. He also told CNN’s ‘Situation Room’ that the Iraq war had not made the world safer from terror.

In his book, the president wrote he never supported the US invasion of Iraq.

“I stand by it, absolutely,” he told anchorman Wolf Blitzer.

Asked whether he disagreed with President George Bush, he said: “I’ve stated whatever I had to ...it [the war] has made the world a more dangerous place.”

Gen Musharraf reacted sharply when asked why the United States could operate in Afghanistan but not in Pakistan.

“Please don’t compare Pakistan with Afghanistan,” he said. “Pakistan is a very, very stable country. We have a strong government. We have a strong military. We have a strong intelligence system, and everything in Afghanistan has broken down.... We don’t want our sovereignty to be violated, whereas in Afghanistan, there was an issue of terrorism after 9/11 and law and order was broken down.”

The president was critical of Afghan President Hamid Karzai who he said was “turning a blind eye like an ostrich” to situational realities in his country and pointing the finger at Pakistan.

President Musharraf denied that a deal worked out with tribal leaders in North Waziristan offered amnesty to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as some critics had claimed. He rejected reports that Mullah Omar was in Pakistan, saying he was among his people in Kandahar and the Taliban movement was based in Afghanistan.

“If you keep going wrong, and thinking every one thing is in Pakistan, this is what will happen. Now, if everything is in Afghanistan, I must say Mullah Omar is damn crazy to be sitting in Quetta when his people, who are fighting, (and) his army are sitting in Afghanistan,” he said.—APP