President General Pervez Musharraf has rejected “absolutely and totally” the prospect of joint US-Pakistan military operations to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan. “The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it,” he told CBS news channel in an interview. “Pakistan is being maligned by the West unfairly” in criticism that it is not doing enough to root out terrorists on its soil and to help crush the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, he said. He blamed the criticism on a “total lack of understanding of the environment and reality by President Hamid Karzai himself”. Asked if he was “angry” with Karzai, he replied: “Yes, indeed. Very angry.”
Musharraf dismissed as “absolute nonsense” a claim by Karzai that Taliban leader Mullah Omar was hiding in Pakistan. “He is in south Afghanistan somewhere. He is not in Pakistan, although President Karzai and everyone keeps saying he is in Quetta - absolute nonsense, absolute total nonsense- he has never been in Pakistan.”
The president said Pakistan was following the correct strategy in the war against terrorism. “Even if we are succeeding 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, the direction is correct, end goal is correct, strategy is correct,” he said.
