NEW YORK, Nov 13: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has said that a tiny minority of “unenlightened, obscurantist and backward-looking” religious extremists will not be allowed to hold Pakistan back from becoming the most powerful moderate Islamic country in the world.

“We are a people of 140 million people. We are a nuclear power. If our economy is stabilized, we will become the most powerful moderate Islamic country,” President Musharraf told a news conference on Monday.

Declaring his visit to the United Nations and the United States successful, the president said that his challenge to the majority of moderate Pakistanis to confront the extremist minority was a calculated risk, adding “I am confident that I will succeed in national interest.”

Chief Executive Gen Musharraf said he believed that the restoration of “real democracy” was in the national interest. “I believe that Pakistan military only intervened because of the political failings.”

He said there would be no change in the elections schedule. However, he indicated that some “structural changes” in the democratic setup would take place. Referring to the Kashmir issue, the president said that he had been able to project Pakistan’s point of view on the issues of Afghanistan and Kashmir on international fora and during his meetings with US President George Bush.

The general pointed out that for the first time the United States in the joint statement had said that the Kashmir issue should be “resolved according to the wishes of Kashmiri people”. They (the US government) never made such a statement in a joint proclamation before, he added. The president felt that the US would remain engaged in the region. “They themselves have a guilty conscious about their previous abandonment.”

“Strategic realities have changed, the environment has changed. We should have confidence in ourselves, in our strategic importance, in our potential,” he added.

On continued operations by groups like Jaish-i-Mohammad and Lashkar-i-Taiyaba in Kashmir, Gen Musharraf said that Pakistan would continue to support freedom struggle in Kashmir. He said these groups were not linked to domestic terrorism.

“Let’s not mix the two: domestic extremists and those involved in the Kashmir struggle. We should differentiate clearly between the two. But if any organization found involved in domestic extremism, we will take action against it. But Oct 1 incident in Srinagar was, in my own view, also a terrorist act. I condemned it,” he said.

He asserted that the diplomacy was of our own making, adding “no one gives anything for nothing, the strategic realities have changed, our relationships have changed and Pakistan could now speak from a position of strength.”

About the US aid to Pakistan, he said: “Pakistan does not want any aid and help in drib and drab. Instead, “we want a big package at the same time.”

The president said he was positive that at the December 11 meeting of the Paris Club the debt rescheduling and debt restructure would take place to give Pakistan a relief from the debt burden.