ABU DHABI, 25 January 2007 — Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf yesterday challenged those accusing Islamabad of providing safe haven to Al-Qaeda leaders to give evidence to substantiate their claims.

He rejected accusations that Al-Qaeda leaders had found shelter in his country to mastermind attacks on NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

“I take extremely strong exception to anybody (accusing) ... any government agency of Pakistan of cooperating with these extremist forces and sending them into Afghanistan,” Musharraf said on a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

Pakistan is “the only country which has delivered the maximum on both” Al-Qaeda and its allies in the Taleban militia, Musharraf said. “Six hundred or seven hundred of Al-Qaeda leadership have been arrested by Pakistan. Similarly, maximum Taleban leaders have been arrested by Pakistan ... Tell me any leader of Taleban caught in Afghanistan.

“It is others who are not doing enough,” he said, adding that sealing off the border to militants “has to be done by Afghanistan, the American troops, the International Security Assistance Force, NATO and Pakistan.” The Pakistani president was responding to accusations leveled by a series of senior US officials earlier this month, including President George W. Bush’s top intelligence adviser John Negroponte, that senior Al-Qaeda leaders were continuing to operate from “secure hide-outs” in Pakistan.

Musharraf also denied accusations by a purported Taleban spokesman detained in Afghanistan that the militia’s fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had found refuge in the Pakistani city of Quetta. “Whoever says he is in Quetta, I’ll take him in my aircraft (to the city)... I will try to catch him myself,” he said. The Taleban leader “is obviously in Afghanistan.”

Musharraf held talks in Abu Dhabi with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa ibn Zayed Al-Nahayan at the end of a Middle East tour.

President Musharraf said he had agreed with five Arab leaders to develop a peace initiative for the Palestinian conflict, which he said lay at the root of worsening violence around the region.

“Destructive violence is going on in Iraq, Lebanon is mired in crisis, and the most dangerous aspects of these two are the visible sectarian undertones which cause a special concern to us in Pakistan,” Musharraf told reporters.

“The core lies in the Palestinian dispute and the core lies in the disharmony within the Muslim world, which is leading to terrorism and extremism,” he said.

“This is a time to act and adopt a reconciliatory approach... toward starting a fresh initiative to facilitate peace, a resolution of the Palestinian dispute and bringing harmony to the Muslim world.” Musharraf said there had been a “total consonance of views” on the need for such an initiative among the leaders of the countries he visited — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as well as the UAE.

“We have agreed to undertake this mission in a responsible, pragmatic, but forceful manner,” he said, adding that the initiative would have to be a compromise capable of winning broad support.

“The European Union is a very important player, it must be on board. And definitely ... the major players of the world must have faith in this new initiative.

“It has to be a middle course initiative acceptable to both extremes.”

The Pakistani president gave no details of how he intended to advance the initiative.