Rejecting the criticism that Pakistan has not done enough to check increased militancy along the restive Pakistan-Afghanistan border, President Pervez Musharraf has said 'those sitting in the West should come and learn from us as we are doing more than any other country in the world'.
"You sitting in the West don't know anything. So, don't teach me, come and learn from us. Come and understand the environment. And then decide on what has to be done and what doesn't have to be done. We are doing more than any other country in the world," said Musharraf.
"I would tell everyone: Come and learn from us. We are sitting here knowing exactly what is happening on ground," he said.
Musharraf insisted that Pakistan was the only country that had a military, political, developmental and administrative strategy to defeating extremism.
"We have to have a multi-pronged strategy. In Afghanistan it is only the military strategy which is working now," Musharraf said in an interview with the Toronto-based Globe and Mail.
"(The) political element is the negotiations between warring factions. Who are the warring factions? Warring factions are the Afghan government and the coalition forces on one side, and the militant Taliban and even non-Taliban," he said, advocating some form of negotiations between these two.
"Maybe, there are groups who want to give up militancy and negotiate so I can't lay down whether you negotiate with the Taliban, but [if] they want to go on fighting, you don't negotiate with them, take a military angle. You negotiate, you develop contacts with people who are not for fighting."
"Unfortunately the people in the West think that their lives are more important than our lives. They think the gun fodder should be from these countries like Pakistan and developing countries. If their soldiers, one soldier, dies, there is a problem, but 500 of ours have died. And yet Pakistan is blamed for not doing enough," President Musharraf said.
The Pakistani President defended the approach of reaching out to local pro-militant tribal leaders as a way of breaking the cycle of violence.
"These are the tribal maliks [leaders] and elders. Locate them. Identify them, deal with them, and wean them away. That's the strategy that should have been adopted a long time back, but we left the field open for the Taliban, so every one is now suppressed and they are scared. Either they have joined them or they are lying low," Musharraf told the Globe and Mail daily.
Critics have assailed Pakistan over a controversial 2006 peace deal with pro-Taliban militants aimed at ending five years of violent unrest in the semi-autonomous North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
While admitting he was concerned about the growing domestic opposition to his government, Musharraf did not agree to the charge of mishandling the issue.
"The judicial crisis has been politicised. It has been publicised by the opposition. It is an election year also. All political parties want to show their turf," Musharraf argued.
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