WASHINGTON, May 27: President Gen Pervez Musharraf declared on Sunday that infiltration into held Kashmir had stopped, but demanded a response from New Delhi, including the renewal of direct talks between the two countries.

Talking to The Washington Post in Islamabad, Gen Musharraf rejected criticism that his government had retreated from pledges to crack down on militants and said: “We will ensure that terrorism does not go from Pakistan anywhere outside into the world. That is our stand, and we adhere to it.”

The president said he knew “a lot of people are having doubts” about his commitment to control religious extremism, but told the Post: “Let me assure you, there is no backtracking.”

The interview was published on the same day as President George Bush, in Paris, asked Gen Musharraf to “show results” and to “perform” on delivering on his promises to stop what is referred to as cross-border infiltration.

According to the Post, Gen Musharraf “heatedly accused India of sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan, bullying its neighbours and provoking him with inflamed rhetoric. He said India has used massive border deployments and war threats in recent weeks ‘to destabilize me, my government and Pakistan’. Musharraf threatened that if war erupted between the nuclear-armed rivals, ‘we’ll take the offensive into Indian territory’.”

The Post report added: “Gen Musharraf made clear that he was offering a fresh pledge to end the border crossings, but he declined to offer specifics, and the language he used was at times ambiguous. Musharraf used the same words four times during the 45-minute interview, stressing that ‘there is nothing happening across the Line of Control’.”

Asked if the absence of infiltrations he described had been achieved through specific decisions made in the last week or two, he responded: “I repeat: There is nothing happening on the Line of Control. That is what I would like to repeat. And I would like to repeat again: Reciprocation is important.”

Gen Musharraf said he would not consider “de-escalation alone” by India along the border an adequate response, demanding in addition “initiation of (a) dialogue process (and) reduction of atrocities within Kashmir. And when I say that, on defining it, it really means that as a first step, the (Indian) military should leave the towns and cities of Kashmir and be in the outskirts.”

The Post says the general rejected criticism that his performance had not lived up to a pledge made in the Jan 12 speech, in which he declared that Pakistan’s government would no longer tolerate radicals at home or use them as instruments of foreign policy. He said Pakistan’s commitment to fight terrorism had three components: its partnership with the United States to battle Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “the issue of cross-border terrorism” in Kashmir and battles between rival Islamic sects in Pakistan.

“Musharraf spoke most forcefully about Al Qaeda. ‘Pakistan will not — repeat, will not — allow any foreign mercenaries, militants, anywhere inside Pakistan, whether they are infiltrating through Afghanistan or coming from any other place. Whether they are on our border belt, or in our cities, we will hunt them down’.”

On Kashmir, Gen Musharraf defend the cause of the freedom fighters but cited the attacks on the Indian Parliament complex, the shooting of civilians in an army camp this month and other similar incidents as cases where “there were civilians who have been killed — and I call them terrorist acts. There is no doubt in my mind.” But as to accusations that Pakistanis were involved in these incidents, he said: “Let’s have proof. Let us have evidence.”

Gen Musharraf said he told Secretary of State Colin Powell and other US officials last week that infiltrations across the Line of Control had ended, and made the same demands for Indian reciprocity. He said he also complained about the volume of “chest thumping that goes on from the other side. Continuously, there is a jabbing at us, a rhetoric, which is annoying.”