'Our interest is only nuclear energy'

Suhasini Haider: President Musharraf, we heard you spoke on a couple of occasions after President Bush’s visit about the achievements of that visit. It has seemed to be a public sense of disappointment, that more was not achieved, especially given the sort of announcements that were made during his India visit.

President Musharraf: I am not concerned what he does with India. As far as his achievements with India are concerned, we know that they are in the nuclear strategic relationship and we know against whom it is directed. So, as far as we are concerned, we know that it has certain implications of opening out the nuclear establishment.

Well, we don’t have any such desire of opening out and we don’t have any such desire of going public. I think now we understand, our interest is only nuclear energy and that’s why I have spoken to President Bush and hopefully we will get it.

Suhasini Haider: You have given an interview before President Bush’s visit and you had said that you had hoped for more on the resolution of Kashmir. But it seems that President Bush seems to say that he would encourage and not facilitate, those were the words he used.

President Musharraf: I did not go into details of the words, but certainly if it is facilitate or encourage, I think it is one and the same thing. We are into a bilateral dialogue, we don’t want to make it trilateral or multilateral. He can only encourage us or facilitate, both of them seem to mean the same thing.

Suhasini Haider: Well, let’s talk about that dialogue. To begin with, President Bush did say that confidence building measures seem to be bearing fruits. That’s what he said in Delhi. But we have heard you say on occasions that CBMs are not headed any where, where is the India-Pakistan peace process going right now?

President Musharraf: No I did not say that, I said that CBM’s are not enough. We need to go on the dialogue process, that’s what I have been saying, I have always been saying that CBM’s are doing reasonably well.

But I believe in a two-track effort and that is the conflict resolution part. Conflict resolution part is not doing well at all, while CBM”s are doing alright. That is what I have been saying.

Suhasini Haider: The next round of the composite bilateral dialogue process has been announced the day it is full, for the future talks. What are your hopes over the next few months? Do you hope to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?

President Musharraf: The ball in his court. I have invited him and he has accepted the invitation. I don’t know, if he wants to come, he is more than welcome, if he doesn’t come, it is his wish.

Suhasini Haider: To come back to President Bush’s visit, when you came out of your discussions with each other, it seemed the process of democracy in Pakistan came up quite a large part of that discussion. Did that surprise you?

President Musharraf: No, we didn’t come up that prominently at all, there are other issues, which came up more prominently.

As far as democracy is concerned, I believe in democracy. He knows what I have done for democracy is much more than anyone else has done.