WASHINGTON / NEW YORK, Sept 13: US President George Bush has never questioned President Gen Pervez Musharraf about his decision last year to renege on a pledge to step down as the army chief, the Washington Post quoted the latter as saying.

In an interview to the Post, Gen Musharraf defended his democratic credentials. “Let me assure you that President Bush never talks about ‘when are you taking your uniform off’,” he said.

The president said he believed that Iran, like every country, had a right to peaceful use of nuclear power.

He expressed surprise that North Korea had denied having a uranium enrichment programme. Because, he pointed out, a nuclear smuggling network had sold North Korea designs and centrifuge parts needed for such a programme. “I think they do have an enrichment programme.”

He said Washington and Islamabad had no agreement about what would happen to Osama bin Laden if he were captured in Pakistan. However, he added, he would readily turn the Al Qaeda leader over to the US. He said Pakistan had captured 600 to 700 members of Al Qaeda and added “they are all here in the United States, we handed them over.”

The president said it was “very much a concern” to him that he still held the army post.

“A president cannot be a president in uniform, should not be,” he said. But “the environment of Pakistan dictates that I keep it on until 2007… the regional and international environment demands that I keep it on. So why should I be bothered to remove it now?”

He said he had “totally turned around Pakistan” and made key advances in fostering democracy, including protecting freedom of the press, empowering local government, improving the position of women in society and giving greater representation to minorities. “Leave the developing world aside; I think we are better than all of them,” Gen Musharraf declared. “Bring the developed world and let us compare Pakistan’s record, under me, a uniformed man, with many of the developed countries. I challenge that we will be better off.” He became animated when he spoke about the case of Mukhtaran Mai, saying she was free to travel now and that he had no regrets about how he had handled the incident. He said Ms Mukhtaran had come under the sway of organizations determined to harm Pakistan’s image and he did not think the country “should be singled out when the curse is everywhere in the world.” He noted he had seen reports or figures about rape in the US, Canada, France and Britain showing it is happening everywhere. “You must understand the environment in Pakistan,” he said. “This has become a moneymaking concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped.” The president was critical of the execution of the US invasion of Iraq and said the war had contributed to an unstable Middle East. He said the US should have targeted only Saddam Hussein. Instead, he added, the invasion had left images that were very disturbing to Muslims. “If you launch a massive operation where the whole world sees for months bombing and shelling and people dying and towns burning, this alarms the whole Muslim world,” he said. “So the whole scenario of a hated man turns into sympathy for the people of Iraq. It went to the worse.” Cautioning against similar operations, he said Pakistan would not support any military action against Iran. He supported Iran’s nuclear programme, saying “every country has a right to use nuclear knowledge for peaceful purposes.” The international community should be looking for ways to help Iran, he said, adding “Iran needs to show flexibility” as well.

BOMB DESIGNS: Meanwhile, President Musharraf said in an interview to the New York Times on Tuesday there was no evidence that Dr A.Q. Khan’s network had given bomb designs to North Korea and Iran.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Whether he passed these bomb designs to others, there is no such evidence,” he said.

However, he reconfirmed he believed that Dr Khan’s network had exported “probably a dozen” centrifuges to North Korea to produce nuclear weapons fuel.

He stressed that after two years of interrogations there was still no evidence whether the expert had also given North Korea a Chinese-origin design to build a nuclear weapon.

Asked about Pakistan’s diplomatic openings toward Israel he said it could flourish “in case there is forward movement” on negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. However, he added, “this is by no means recognition of Israel.”

The president insisted that the move had met with little opposition in Pakistan.

He told the paper it was possible that Osama bin Laden was still moving between remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. “I will not negate entirely, with confidence that he is not there. But I will never accept anybody who says with confidence that he is there.”

However, he pointed out, Osama’s power had been reduced, no matter where he was. “We have almost eliminated them… we have broken their back in the mountains.” The groups no longer operate in the valleys of the Afghan border area, he said, “because we have occupied them.”

He rejected arguments that Pakistan was half-hearted in its efforts to root out Al Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban.

Referring to his meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen Musharraf said he had asked her to move towards a free trade agreement with Pakistan. He, however, pointed out that he had made no demands for an agreement that would match the Bush administration’s offer to help India develop a civilian nuclear power programme.

The paper also quoted Ms Rice as praising Gen Musharraf for working in three areas — helping to pursue members of Al Qaeda, creating ‘diplomatic space’ for operating by reaching out to India and Israel, and working to improve education and economy to discourage militancy.

“There are parts of Pakistan that are extremely poor where you get breeding grounds for this kind of extremism,” she said and added that the US would help him (Musharraf) deal with those issues.