Pakistan will not permit United States aircraft and forces to violate its airspace to attack Al Qaeda targets in the country, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said.
"We are very capable of tackling such activities ourselves. Our armed forces are well-equipped. We do not allow any country to violate our sovereignty. We are committed to fighting terrorism, but it has to be fought together," he said in an interview to
CNN.
However, Pakistan is firmly committed to fight terrorism, he said, underlining the need for striving collectively to make the world a safer place to live in.
US President George W Bush had said that he would order military operations inside Pakistan if terror mastermind Osama bin Laden or other top terrorists were found to be hiding there.
Aziz said terrorism was not going to disappear overnight, but perhaps it 'will induce everyone to look at the root causes of terrorism and address them so that this threat, which knows no borders, was linked to no faith or geography and could affect anybody any time, was gradually eliminated.'
On Afghan President Hamid Karzai's remarks on the whereabouts
of bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the prime minister said, no body knows where Osama is and he can be anywhere.
"We have no clue where he is. If ever he was to be found in our territory, we would go after him," he said.
Aziz rejected as 'totally incorrect' the claim by an Afghan leader that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is in Quetta. Pakistan has a very effective security and intelligence network and there is no evidence that Mullah Omar or any of his immediate colleagues are in Quetta, Aziz said.
He said the command and control network of the Taliban was deep inside Afghanistan and the incidents occurring there were far from Pakistan's borders.
Asked whether he saw any change in the US foreign policy in the wake of the sweeping gains made by the Democrats in the Congressional polls, he said the results reflected the voice of the people.
"It is for the United States, its government and the elected representative to decide what they have to do. But I am sure that the US will continue to pursue the path of peace, fighting terrorism and hoping for a better and safer world for all of us," Aziz said.