By IRNA-PTI
Islamabad : President Pervez Musharraf warned that any unilateral action by US troops to enter Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan in the hunt for al-Qaida militants would be regarded as an invasion and asserted they would “regret” that day.
“The United States seems to think that what our army cannot do, they can do. This is a very wrong perception. I challenge anybody to come into our mountains. They would regret that day,” Musharraf said in an interview to Straits Times of Singapore in what seems to be an open dare by him.
Asked if any unauthorised incursion by US forces in the mountainous tribal areas in the hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban militants would be considered an invasion, Musharraf replied “Certainly. If they come without our permission, that’s against the sovereignty of Pakistan.”
Mushrraf’s sternest language yet with the US came in the backdrop of reports that Washington was considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct more aggressive covert operations in Pakistan ‘s tribal areas where al-Qaida is believed to be gaining strength.
Musharraf, however, said when it comes to Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the “methodology of getting him will be discussed together and we’ll attack the target together”.
“Any action against him will be free, if we know where he is, if we have good intelligence,” he said, adding US forces alone would fare no better than their Pakistani counterparts in the rugged terrain.
“Here it’s a mountainous terrain. Minimal communications infrastructure. Every individual has a weapon and each tribe has its own armoury and they don’t like intrusions into their privacy at all,” he said, adding “it’s better if they ask some military or
intelligence commander of their own whether their army, their people, coming into our mountains will operate better than our army.” Musharraf also joined issue with US Democratic Presidential contender and Senator Hillary Clinton’s proposal to place Pakistan’s nuclear weapons under supervision by the US and the UK.
Her statement, the President said, was “an intrusion into our privacy, into our sensitivity… She doesn’t seem to understand how well- guarded these assets are.”
Musharraf also repeated his advice to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to negotiate with the Taleban.
Not all Taliban wanted to behave barbarously, he said, and military action could not, by itself, provide an ultimate solution. A solution would come by moving simultaneously on the socio-economic, political and military fronts.
The road would be long, and in Afghanistan, coalition forces – the US, NATA, Australia and others – would have to have the stamina to persist.
If US-led coalition forces depart without some stable government in place that is strong enough to defend itself, that would “affect the stability of the whole region and the world”, he said.
Musharraf also spoke about his talks with the then US President Bill Clinton on the policy to be adopted towards Taliban when he visited Pakistan.
“We were criticised before September 11 because we were the only ones who had a relationship with the Taliban. When I came on the scene in 1999, I spoke to the Saudis, to the United Arab Emirates…they had also recognised the Taleban but had removed their embassies from Kabul.
I told President (Bill) Clinton, who was visiting Islamabad, that we should accept the reality (of the Taliban in power in Kabul), have diplomatic relations with them and then change them from within. Had that happened, some things might have been different today,” Musharraf said.