Pakistan on Thursday sent mixed signals with President Pervez Musharaf saying his government was geared up to defending the country and its strategic assets at all costs and a senior Army official ruling out nuclear war between the two countries.
Talking to delegations of Islamic clerics in Islamabad on Thursday, Musharraf also said that Pakistan would continue its moral, diplomatic and political support to Kashmiris for their right to self determination.
Meeting the clerics in the backdrop of arrests of militants of the Jaish-e-Muhammad and freezing of assets of Lashkar-e-Toiba, the two outfits blamed by India for the December 13 attack on Parliament, he said, "Pakistan first has to emerge economically stronger in order to sustain its defences." He told them that, "There is need to make Pakistan strong in economic and defence fields. We can better serve Islam if we have strong defence.Pakistan has the required defence capability but to sustain that it needed to strengthen its economy," he was quoted as saying by the official media.
Musharaf said Islam is a tolerant, vibrant, moderate and progressive religion and these aspects needs to be projected before the world. He said that because of our irresponsible attitudes and actions, we have not done any service to Islam and accused the sectarian outfits of using mosques to spread sectarian hatred.
Musharraf said a situation has been created where one sectarian group has been pitted against the other and regretted that instead of resolving the differences through negotiations, they resorted to violence. He said that this necessitates evolution of a code of conduct by clerics. Bureau Report