Musharraf eyes closer ties with US

Bilateral and regional issues, including Islamabad's relations with India are expected to figure during talks between Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and top officials of Bush administration in Washington on Thursday.

Musharraf, who held high profile meetings in New York, will meet Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Issues such as war on terror and the deal Pakistan had signed with the local tribal chiefs of the North are also expected to figure prominently in Thursday's meetings.

The Pakistani President will meet President George W Bush at the White House on Friday and is expected to deliberate on the same issues. Diplomats and experts on South Asia maintain that Musharraf will also bring up the sale of F-16s and repeat his views on the civilian nuclear deal that the US has signed with India, insisting that the same be offered to Islamabad as well.

Other critical issues that Musharraf and Bush are expected to discuss bilaterally on Friday and along with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a three-way meeting next Tuesday include the concern in the US administration about the deal Pakistan signed with the local tribal chiefs of the North and the ongoing war of words between Musharraf and Karzai.

Karzai had, in an interview to CNN on Tuesday, strongly criticised Pakistan for the resurgence of Taliban.

However,

the Pakistani President came down heavily on the Afghan leader saying what Karzai had said was not correct. "We need to understand the environment correctly. And if you do not know the environment, I am afraid our strategy will be wrong, our responses will be wrong. The problem is that they don't know the environment. What President Karzai has said is not the correct thing. It is not the correct environment," Musharraf told reporters.

"Now, who are the Taliban? Who is leading the Taliban? Taliban are the same people who came about in 1995. They took over 90 percent of Afghanistan by '97. And they were in Afghanistan until 9/11, for four years. Who were they? Were they from Pakistan? I would like to ask him (Karzai)," the Pakistani President said.

Musharraf also rejected the contention that Taliban leaders like Mullah Omar are hiding inside Pakistan. "Mullah Omar is in his own area, which is Kandahar and the southern provinces of Afghanistan. He is there. He has never once -- been to Pakistan since 1995, when he came on the scene. He had, they say, come to some madrassas when he was young," the Pakistani leader asserted.

"The problem lies in Afghanistan, and that is creating problem in Pakistan. It has been creating Pakistan since 27 years. Since 27 years, since 1979, Pakistan has borne the brunt of all that has happened in Afghanistan," Musharraf said.