LONDON, Nov 9: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has said the impression being created to portray the current campaign against terrorism as a tussle between the civilizations should be curbed.

Speaking at a dinner hosted in his honour by Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Jaffer here on Thursday , President Musharraf said: “Islam is a religion of peace and forgiveness. If some one associates Islam with terrorism, it is factually incorrect. All of us are Muslims but none are extremists.”

Gen Musharraf said he prayed that strategic objectives of the current war against terrorism were achieved as soon as possible. Afghanistan had suffered enough during over 20 years of war and hence it needed a respite, he added.

He said that once the conflict came to an end the international community should get together for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. President Musharraf said the current international coalition had been formed to fight terrorism and Pakistan had taken a “deliberate decisioin” to become part of it. “ We are pursuing a just course”, he added.

Dilating on the causes of terrorism, the president said that if terrorism had to be rooted out, all disputes like Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya had to be resolved.

“All these are political problems and each one of it, unfortunately, involves Muslims,” he said. The conflicts, he added, created a sense of despondency and added that terrorism could be uprooted through a solution of these problems.

The president said that knocking down some terrorist organizations was like felling some branches of a “tree of terrorsim”. That was the reason why he had outlined a three-pronged strategy to check terrorism.

He said Pakistan was a moderate Islamic country and no religious party had ever won a significant number of votes. In recent local bodies election the religious parties had secured even less than two per cent votes, he added.

The president said that the processions shown on televison did not represent the majority but an extremist minority. Referring to rallies in Karachi and Quetta, he said they were staged by Afghan protesters. None of the Karachiites participated in the protest in the port city, he added. —APP