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| Wednesday, 8 December 2004 |
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Pakistan, Britain push for uprooting cause of terror LONDON, Tuesday (AFP) The leaders of Britain and Pakistan agreed that the world could not defeat terrorism by force alone, and that it must move quickly to remove its "root causes" such as poverty and political grievances. At a press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stopped short of repeating remarks that the world was "absolutely" less safe because of the way the US-led war on terror was being conducted. Though Musharraf backed "fighting terrorism head-on militarily," he said there needed to be a "strategic long-term" approach that included the resolution of political disputes and ending poverty and illiteracy. "I'm very sure that the situation in the world now is ripe for resolution of these political disputes," he said. In Washington on Saturday, Musharraf said US President George W. Bush had agreed that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was "the core issue" of the war on terrorism, but a senior White House aide disputed his assessment as going too far. Blair, who preceded Musharraf to the White House on November 11, expressed "complete" agreement with Musharraf. "We have got to take every action that we can ... to fight terrorism militarily, but we would be foolish to ignore the causes upon which terrorism preys," such as political disputes, Blair said. Pakistani journalists said the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Pakistan's conflict with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir were at the heart of the problem, both of which the two leaders discussed. Though he declined to go into details of their talks on how to proceed with the Palestinian-Israeli problem, Blair said: "I think the next period of time is absolutely crucial." "If we don't seize this opportunity now, it may not come for us again." Blair's spokesman said earlier that Musharraf had helped fight the war on terror by pushing for democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq and that London believed Pakistan was also making genuine progress toward democracy. However, three dozen members of the Islamist Hizb al-Tahrir party staged a protest outside the talks venue at Downing Street, denouncing Musharraf as a dictator and as a stooge for the United States. Though uneasy about the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Musharraf on Monday echoed Blair's calls to "stay the course," backing both military operations to stabilize the country and pave the way for elections in January. In an interview to be broadcast later on Monday, Musharraf said he thought the world was "absolutely" less safe and mentioned the root causes that he listed in the press conference. "We are fighting it in its immediate context, but we are not fighting it in its strategic, long-term context," he told BBC television's "Newsnight" programme. Musharraf is on the frontline is at the heart of the war on the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden's, who is presumed to be in hiding in the lawless frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Musharraf added that Pakistan had "broken the back" of Al-Qaeda within its own borders since militants fled US forces who invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. "They are on the run, their command and control structure is broken, their logistics bases have been smashed, and we occupy them," he said. |
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