Bush urges Pakistan to rein in extremists
US President George W Bush today urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to take new steps to rein in extremists who threaten to destabilise the United States coalition against terrorism.
As tensions rose between Pakistan and India, Bush told Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee the United States would cooperate with India in its fight against terror.
In a sign of the growing sense of urgency within the administration about the military build-up in the region, Bush called both leaders by telephone tonight during his Christmas holiday in Crawford, Texas.
Bush expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s ‘‘continued support’’ during the US-led military campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
But Bush’s message to Musharraf was much sharper than to Vajpayee.
The crisis in the region flared after the December 13 attack by gunmen on India’s Parliament, which India blamed on Pakistan-based militants whom, it says, are backed by the Pakistani government.
Pakistan denies involvement in the attack, which left nine Indians and the five attackers dead.
Bush ‘‘urged President Musharraf to take additional strong and decisive measures to eliminate the extremists who seek to harm India, undermine Pakistan, provoke a war between India and Pakistan and destabilise the international coalition against terrorism’’, McClellan said.
McClellan would not elaborate on what steps Bush sought, or what it meant to ‘‘eliminate’’ the extremists.
Bush told Vajpayee that the United States is ‘‘determined to cooperate with India in the fight against terrorism’’, and reiterated his outrage over the attack on its parliament, calling it ‘‘a strike against democracy’’.
Bush urged both leaders to work to reduce tensions, McClellan said.
The president also discussed the crisis with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he added.
