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Maintain an edge, Musharraf tells troops

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD July 16. In what is billed as the biggest exercise in its history, Pakistan today launched 10 days of war games with a call by the Pakistan President and the Chief of the Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, to the troops to maintain "their edge over the adversary''.

Gen. Musharraf held a meeting with senior officers of the three services at the beginning of the exercise. "The massing and deployment of Indian troops along the border has exposed certain vulnerabilities of the Indian army, which were very useful in formulating various options,'' he told the senior officers.``By the grace of almighty Allah, Pakistan's armed forces have the capability to not only defend every inch of the motherland, but also strike a telling blow to anyone who dares to challenge the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country,'' Gen. Musharraf said.

The exercise being held at the National Defence College is ostensibly to evaluate the professional preparedness of the armed forces in the case of a conflict. The Director-General of Military Operations, Ashfaque Kiyani, told reporters on Monday that since 1971, Pakistan had arranged many `war games' involving its entire corps, war machinery and equipment.

In another development, the visiting Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Tyronne Fernando, today expressed the hope that India and Pakistan would resume the process of dialogue and resolve all their differences.``We are very much concerned about our two friends (Pakistan and India) being armed with nuclear weapons and would like them to live peacefully and with their problems resolved'', he told journalists at a joint news conference with the Pakistan Commerce Minister, Abdul Razak Dawood.

To a question, Mr. Fernando said that as a neighbour, Sri Lanka was carefully monitoring the situation but was "not mediating in any way... because this is a bilateral matter between Pakistan and India.''

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