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War will not be a walkover: Musharraf

Stating that Pakistan wanted "peace with honour", the president, in an interview to the Financial Times, said, "There's no walkover here by any side. I am sure the Indians also know that."

The president, who spoke to the paper immediately after his televised address on Monday night, said: "Sanity demands avoidance of war, but at the same time in the pursuit of peace you can't compromise on honour and dignity and so one has to strike a balance between maintaining honour and dignity and going for peace."

Denying that Pakistan was sending terrorists into India, Musharraf said, "We have made it very clear that there is no activity along the LoC [Line of Control]."

He said, "While I do not want war, I am not scared of war. However the avoidance of war cannot come at the cost of sacrificing our honour and dignity."

"We have good military deterrence. We not only have a good defensive capability but a good offensive capability too. It would not be right for a head of a state to discuss our nuclear deterrent. But at the level of conventional forces that we maintain is more than adequate to implement our strategy of deterrence."

The president said he did "not accept any figures that the Indians give". "Those who accuse us cannot be allowed to sit in judgment on us."

Musharraf claimed of "unilaterally" stepping up the presence of United Nations observers on Pakistan's side of the LoC to verify the "absence of infiltration activity".

Ruling out the possibility of handing over the 20 terrorists wanted by India, he said some of the names submitted by New Delhi, including those of people who had allegedly committed crimes in 1980, were "ridiculous".

"We can give India a list of names who committed crimes in 1947," he said.

UNI

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