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Bush 'taken aback' by US threats
22/09/2006 21:30 - (SA)
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| Pakistani President general Pervez Musharraf speaks in a joint press conference with US President George W Bush in the White House in Washington. (Gerald Herbert, AP) |
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Washington - United States President George W Bush said on Friday that he was "taken aback" by a purported US threat to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if it did not co-operate in America's fight against terrorism.
Bush praised Pakistani President general Pervez Musharraf for being one of the first foreign leaders to support the US after attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001.
At a joint White House news conference, Musharraf said a peace treaty between his government and tribes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border did not support the Taliban.
He said news reports had mischaracterised the deals: "The deal is not at all with the Taliban. This deal is against the Taliban. This deal is with the tribal elders."
Bush said Musharaf had vowed that "the tribal deal was intended to reject the Talibanisation of the people and that there won't be a Taliban and there won't be al-Qaeda (in Pakistan)".
'Be prepared'
In an interview to air on CBS television's 60 Minutes on Sunday, Musharraf said that after the attacks on New York, Richard Armitage, then US deputy secretary of state, had told Pakistan's intelligence director that the US would bomb his country if it did not help fight US-identified terrorists.
He said that Armitage had told him: "Be prepared to go back to the stone age."
Armitage disputed the language attributed to him but did not deny the message was a strong one, reported CBS.
Asked about the report, Bush said, "The first I heard of this is when I read it in the newspaper. I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words."
For his part, Musharraf declined to comment and cited a contract agreement with a publisher on an upcoming book.
Karzai-Bush talks this week
However, he told CBS the stone age warning "was a very rude remark".
Bush has repeatedly praised Pakistan for arresting hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda operatives inside its borders.
But the US has also urged Pakistan to do more to prevent suspects from crossing its tribal regions into Afghanistan, where Taliban-fanned violence has spread since the American-led invasion.
Pakistan signed a truce with tribal leaders earlier this month.
Bush will talk with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday. The three leaders will sit down to a meeting together at the White House on Wednesday.
Bush must work to placate the concerns of Pakistan, a chief ally in his war on terror, as well as the struggling democratic government in Afghanistan.
- AP
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