Musharraf has delicate task at hand

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, NOV. 2. As the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, prepares himself to address the U.N. General Assembly in the second week of November, he is faced with the delicate task of balancing the support extended by his regime to the U.S.- led campaign in Afghanistan and the Kashmir issue.

The nature of Gen. Musharraf's difficulties were evident as a prominent pro-Taliban Pakistani religious leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, questioned the contradictions between Islamabad's policy in branding jehad (holy war) in Kashmir as ``freedom struggle'' and treating the same as terrorism when it came to the Taliban and Afghanistan.

Maulana Rehman, leader of a faction of the Jamat Ulema Islami, (JUI), who is currently under house arrest for inciting protests against Pakistan's pro-U.S. policy, in a statement said that each and every Pakistani citizen wanted to know from the Government the reasons for the change in its Afghan policy.

``If the Islamic Government of Taliban is terrorist, how can they call Kashmiris struggle as jehad. If the American aggression against the Taliban is just, how can they term Indian aggression against the Kashmiris unjust'', he said.

While the entry of injured Pakistani ``mujahideen as well as dead bodies of Pakistani martyrs'' killed in Afghanistan was banned, the Government had provided facilities for the treatment of American soldiers, he said.

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Section  : International
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