US Watching...

Daily Times, September 9, 2006
US watching Pakistan’s deal with militants: Bush

* US president says he doesn’t know all details of agreement with Taliban
* Hopes to see Musharraf ‘pretty soon’

WASHINGTON: A peace deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban militants does not give “safe haven” to terrorists who may be hiding on tribal lands near the Pakistani-Afghan border, US President George W Bush said in an interview on Thursday.

“I don’t read it that way,” Bush said of the agreement Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s government signed on Tuesday in which the militants agreed to stop attacks in the region. “What he is doing is entering agreements with governors in the regions of the country, in the hopes that there would be an economic vitality, there will be alternatives to violence and terror,” Bush said in an ABC News interview.

Many members of the Al Qaeda network and the Taliban fled to Waziristan after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001. Tuesday’s agreement said foreigners could stay in Waziristan as long as they kept the peace.

Bush said he did not know all the details of the agreement but added that he would be seeing Musharraf “pretty soon”.

“You know, we are watching this very carefully, obviously,” Bush said. “We have made it clear that, uh, he should not provide an environment that enables people to go from his country into Afghanistan.”

“I will tell you this: President Musharraf, in my conversations with him, and I talk to him quite frequently, fully understands, and does not want his country to become a launching pad for military actions against neighbours and/or US troops,” Bush said. Reuters