Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Friday warned that if his repeat request to the United States for F-16s and unmanned Predators was ignored he would procure weapons from other countries.
"Pakistan will not compromise on its strategy of minimum deterrence. So we obviously will look elsewhere to maintain the strategy of minimum deterrence wherever it may be in the world," Musharraf told The Washington Times.
Musharraf, who earlier this week received a $3 billion aid package from US, said Pakistan's security is being threatened by India's growing military power.
Putting forward his case for acquiring Predators, he said they are needed to help Pakistan in its intelligence-oriented war against Al Qaeda terrorists.
"We have 500,000 troops in our army and we know how to fight," he said. "Just give us technical assistance. Tell us where these people are. Locate them for us. Locate them with your satellites, give your UAVs; give us the UAVs. Give us the eyes and ears and we will act."
To date, the US has not exported Predators.
"I won't reiterate the requirement for F-16s. It has been said so many times. When you ask a Pakistani in the street, he will tell you about the F-16s. For the man in the street, he will talk of either F-16s or Kashmir," he said.
On Indo-Pakistan relations, Musharraf said the rising Indian defence budget and weapons purchases are 'tilting the conventional balance of forces in South Asia'.
On Kashmir Musharraf said, "I tell you, for every step they take, we will take three."
After the December 13, 2001 attack on Indian Parliament, Musharraf said Pakistan obtained shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles from North Korea.
"We realised that there is an imbalance in the air especially. And we thought that can be neutralised by having more surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-fired, conventional, which we purchased for our own security," he said.
On Sino-Pakistani ties, he said Pakistan has had a defence relationship with China for decades 'based on a threat perception' regarding India.
"I think the feeling that we needed to have a strategic relationship for our own security was an answer," he said.
Dismissing fears in some sections of the US on the building of deepwater port and naval base at Gwadar because of China's efforts to secure port facilities near major strategic waterways, Musharraf said Gwadar will eventually become a major terminal for gas and oil piped from Central Asia.
"We have never once discussed with China the use of this facility for military purposes. Never has it been discussed. This is putting ideas into the minds of people that this is a Chinese naval base," he said.
Regarding Pakistan's ties to North Korea, Musharraf said he has seen no proof that previous Pakistani governments helped the communist state on nuclear weapons, and insisted that during his rule, no Pakistani nuclear technology was sent to North Korea.
"Let me say for a surety as far as my government is concerned, in the past three years there was no such collaboration," Musharraf said.
Musharraf said that Islamic societies face a period of intense self-examination and must choose between confronting the United States and the West or adopting politically moderate, 'self-emancipating policies'.
On his talks at Camp David with President Bush, Musharraf said he is 'fully satisfied' with the state of US-Pakistani relations. But he acknowledged that there is strong anti-Bush and anti-US sentiment in Pakistan in the wake of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The Islamic world must adopt a strategy of evaluating ourselves, deciding whether we want to follow a militant, confrontationist approach or choose a self-emancipating path away from poverty, away from a lack of production and opportunity," he said.
Musharraf, however, said the US must address quickly the security and political problems in Afghanistan and Iraq to counter 'the very real feeling that it is the Islamic world as a whole that is being targeted' in the US war on terrorism.
Musharraf, who visited senior Congressional leaders on Thursday, said he has received strong assurances that Congress would approve the $3 billion, 5-year package Bush has offered.
The Washington Times noted that Musharraf has pressed Bush administration officials for a much broader deployment of international forces to improve security and curtail warlords who dominate much of the country outside Kabul.
On the US request for Pakistani troops to help stabilise Iraq, Musharraf said that Pakistan would consider a request to contribute up to a division of troops to a peacekeeping force, but that it would participate only under the auspices of the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Countries, or some other international overseer.
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