Meeting with Bush, Karzai was excellent: Musharraf

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday described his meeting with US President George W Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Washington as "excellent" and said it produced positive results to counter terrorism.

"The meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere. It has been decided that we have to forge a common strategy to defeat terrorism jointly," he told reporters upon arrival at Heathrow airport on a two-day visit to UK.

Musharraf said the three leaders, during the meeting over the working dinner hosted by Bush, agreed that there should be better intelligence coordination and interaction to make the anti-terror campaign more effective.

"We have to jointly defeat terrorism. There should be better interaction and intelligence sharing so that we can meet the challenges," posed by terrorism, official APP newsagency quoted him as saying.

To a question, he said it was agreed that there was a requirement of better intelligence sharing and joint sympathetic understanding of the ground realities.

The three leaders also agreed to remain regularly in touch so that there were no differences in future.

The US administration, he added, was completely on board and they understood the strategy being pursued by Pakistan to combat the twin menaces of terrorism and extremism.

On Pakistan-India peace talks, the president described his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit as extremely positive.

He said the joint statement issued after the meeting in Havana is a genuine move forward towards resolution of all issues including Jammu and Kashmir.

Musharraf said he and Dr Singh expressed resolve to solve the Kashmir issue and "narrow down divergences and reinforce convergences" between the two countries.

To a question about his memoir In the Line of Fire, the president said whatever had been written in the book was based on facts. Musharraf said through his book he projected the reality of Pakistan.

"The world is looking at me inquisitively, personally. I thought through me I could project the reality of Pakistan; what it stands for, and clear all the misperceptions. It (the purpose) has been extremely well served," he added.

The president said there were people who were creating misperceptions about certain actions in Pakistan and maligning the country and "we have taken the opportunity to clear this misperception through my massive interaction with media."

He rejected the criticism that he had divulged any state secrets in his book, saying that he fully understood what national secrets were.

"Nobody has to teach me what a national secret is," he said.