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We should avoid war: Musharraf

ISLAMABAD MAY 30. After threatening to unleash a storm if Indian forces set foot on Pakistan's soil, the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, today scaled down his rhetoric by offering the guarantee that his country will not initiate a war.

``All that I can do is give my own assurance that we will try to avoid conflict. It will be the utmost endeavour to avoid conflict. I have been saying all along that conflict will only take place here if it is initiated by India. We will not be the initiators. This is my guarantee," he told reporters here.

Gen. Musharraf has in the past two days increased the tempo of the military tensions by issuing a series of warnings to take the war into Indian territory.

Asked what message he had for the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Gen. Musharraf said: ``I am a soldier and know what destruction it (war) causes. I know what happens when your colleagues suffer, and maybe even die. I understand the miseries of war. There is need for both sides to avoid war. This is my message to Mr. Vajpayee," he said after signing the trilateral gas pipeline project involving Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

To a question on mediation, he said: ``Any mediation helps. It does serve a good purpose. We encourage mediation. (The British Foreign Secretary) Jack Straw came here and we had a frank discussion with him. I am sure such third-party interaction do help defuse the situation.''

Asked whether Pakistani troops were being moved from the Afghan borders and re-deployed along the border with India, Gen. Musharraf said: ``We are very seriously contemplating moving some elements out of these onto the east, if at all tensions remain as high as they are now."

He, however, said the movement of troops had not yet started.

A military statement had earlier said that ``a contingent of Pakistan troops commenced its movement from the western border to reinforce Pakistan troops deployed along the eastern border'' in a ``readjustment in view of the adverse posture of the Indian armed forces.''

Gen. Musharraf said that Pakistan's first priority was its own security and none should grudge it. ``If Pakistan is subjected to aggression, all our resources will be posted where they are needed most," he said adding that it all depended on the situation at the border with India and some them might be moved from there. — PTI

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