London: Despite India's rejection of third party intervention, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that he would like Britain to play a role in negotiations with India in resolving the Kashmir dispute.

"I would love Britain to play a role as an intermediary in resolving the Kashmir dispute," Musharraf, who is on a two-day official visit to the United Kingdom, said in an interview published in 'The Times' daily today (Dec 6, 2004).

Musharraf said, for 30 years India and Pakistan had agreed to 'strict' bilateral negotiations. Until last year this had yielded little but he was "very hopeful" that both sides were now able to move forward.

"British help behind the scenes will keep up the pressure," he said.

Musharraf said he had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and found him to be "very sincere and genuine". But "when you are talking of such intractable dispute as Kashmir, much more than sincerity is needed", he said. "It requires flexibility of mind and courage to go for a solution."

About India's decision to reduce troops in Jammu and Kashmir he said, "it is a good gesture, and good optics, but only tactical". A proper strategy required a resolution of the dispute itself, he said.

Musharraf, who had met US President George W Bush in Washington on Saturday, claimed that Pakistan had destroyed about 600 al-Qaeda terrorists in its cities and "it is only third-stringers apprehended now".

He said the West's obsession with capturing Osama bin Laden had meant that the scale and success of the Pakistani operation was misunderstood.

Musharraf said he told Bush that a key to wiping out terrorism worldwide was to resolve the Palestinian question.

"We must address the root causes, and get to the source of what produces terrorism," he said.

"I know him by now," Musharraf said of President Bush. "I think he wants to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli question. I sense urgency in him."

Relaxed and jovial after a trip that he called "around the world in nine days", visiting "every continent except Australia", Musharraf will talk with British Prime Minister Tony Blair before leaving for Paris and then home.

He said he would like Britain to take tougher action against Islamist extremists using Britain as a haven. Pakistan had sometimes "had to inform" British officials about them.

"I know some areas where there are extremists - sometimes educated in London," he said, in an apparent reference to the killer of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, who studied at the London School of Economics.

Musharraf said he was against overplaying the threat of terrorism. "I am a believer in not causing alarm," he said.

On nuclear proliferation, he insisted that Pakistan's interrogation of its nuclear scientist AQ Khan had "squeezed out" all the secrets of his illegal sales of nuclear technology around the world.

Asking why other countries - and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency - were still asking for access to the disgraced scientist, he said "It shows a lack of trust in Pakistan and a lack of understanding of sensitivities in Pakistan".

Musharraf asked "What makes anyone think that they could interrogate him better than our organization? Are we hiding the information?"

Ridiculing the idea that terrorists could get hold of "a suitcase bomb", he said, "it has taken us three generations" to perfect the technology of a reliable nuclear weapon. "But, please understand, it is not a do-it-yourself furniture piece, where you can get a formula and make a bomb."

Musharraf admitted that Bush had pressed him on this point. AQ Khan provided centrifuges to Iran. "This is very clear," he said.

He was aware of reports that Khan had sold plans of actual nuclear weapons to Libya. "We have no information that he gave them (Iran) designs for a bomb," he said.

To a query, he said Pakistan would not be sending any of its troops to Iraq. "The better course is to raise an Iraqi security force faster," he said. After all, "they had a huge Army and police", and recreating that "will facilitate an exit strategy," for the US.

Insisting that he would remain head of the Army as well as President until 2007, as the Constitution permitted, he said the deadline of December 31 this year for giving up the Army role was "self-imposed".

But now bigger issues were at stake that justified keeping his uniform: fighting terrorism and seeking a rapproachement with India, he added.