PARIS, Dec 8: President General Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday France had agreed to support Pakistan's efforts to get free market access to the robust European Union region as he and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac discussed defence cooperation and the need for resolution of Palestine and Kashmir disputes.

"President Chirac agreed to support Pakistan's case for free market access in the European Union," the president told newsmen after two hours of talks at the Elysee Palace.

During the talks, President Musharraf said, he discussed the purchase of French aircraft, adding that Pakistan was looking for avionics, electronic warfare equipment and collaboration in other defence fields with France.

Pakistan, he said, was making its own jet fighter. Musharraf said he found complete identity of views with President Chirac on bilateral, regional and international issues. "We have excellent diplomatic and political relations and I hold President Chirac in the highest esteem.

"The emphasis in our meeting was on bolstering trade and economic relations," said the president. The two leaders also discussed the situation in South Asia and the need for resolving Kashmir problem with President Musharraf briefing President Chirac on the peace process with India.

"President Chirac has a complete understanding of the situation," said President Musharraf. He expressed the hope that whatever influence President Chirac has, would be utilized to facilitate and encourage the resolution of the Kashmir problem, while Pakistan and India deal bilaterally on the lingering dispute in South Asia.

On the Middle East, Musharraf stressed that the Palestinian question was the core dispute and its resolution would bring about harmony in other areas of Muslim world, including Iraq.

"We took a holistic view on how to improve the situation in the Muslim world and to move forward on the Palestinian dispute. "President Chirac wants and is doing his best for a peace process and for the ultimate resolution of the Palestinian dispute."

In response to a question about Iraq, President Musharraf said he believed in looking at the future. "We should see how to resolve this dispute, how elections can be held and how peace and stability can be brought while ensuring territorial integrity of that country."

Responding to a question about Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the president said he was not aware of his whereabouts but added he was alive. The president, however, emphasized that Pakistan was using its force to fight terrorism as a whole and was not pursuing one man.

Earlier, at a breakfast meeting with journalists, he repeated his message that the US-led campaign against terrorism must not be limited to military measures but include action to tackle the social and economic roots of extremism.

"Pakistan happens to be in the forefront of fighting terrorism. But we see the combat as having two dimensions. One dimension is being applied. This is the fighting and the military aggression to which we are contributing the maximum.

"However the second dimension does not seem to have started yet. And this second dimension is the real dimension - the strategic dimension - which is addressing the root causes," he said.

President Musharraf said the path to long-term success in reducing militancy lay in reducing poverty and illiteracy, and above all in finding a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

"The Palestinian dispute has laid down roots everywhere. Look at Iraq. I agree that the US military campaign there has to be sustained or there will be total instability.

"But the essential strategy is a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Its resolution will have effects everywhere. It will strike at the core of terrorism," he said.

The president said Pakistani forces in the so-called tribal areas along the Afghan border had scored major successes against insurgents linked to the former Taliban regime, and that Osama bin Laden had been rendered inoperational.

"We have eliminated the insurgents in five valleys which were their centre of operations. They are on the run now in the mountains. They have ceased to exist as a homogenous group with command and control.

"Ben Laden is hiding which means he is not communicating and not operating ...I learned in the army that you exercise control through personal contact or communication. So I do not think he is any longer in total command and control of the group," he said.

The Pakistani delegation - which includes the foreign, commerce and information ministers - was using the Paris leg of the tour to push for the maintenance of EU trade preferences introduced in 2002 but due to run out early next year.

Under the changes, Pakistan would no longer enjoy zero tariff access to the EU's 25 member nations for most of its exports, and the country is pressing for an easing of the conditions needed to qualify again for the preferential regime.

"One billion dollars in exports can create 200,000 jobs - and that in turn supports one million people. That is the way to control extremism. It is unfair that something the EU gave us is now being taken away. We have not yet reached the stage where it can be withdrawn. We still need it," said Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar.

President Musharraf confirmed his intention to stay in power till 2007 and said the aim of his international tour was to improve the image of his country, which was in the midst of a 'societal transformation' towards a moderate Islamic state.

"In the past extremist organisations sprang up and because they were militant and aggressive they held the vast moderate majority to ransom. We are now ensuring that the moderate majority rises up to dominate the extremist minority," he said. -Agencies