ISLAMABAD, March 2: President General Pervez Musharraf on Thursday said Pakistan would continue to fight extremism and terrorism in a holistic manner as curbing these menaces was crucial to long-term national security and economic development.

He was addressing participants of the sixth national security workshop at the National Defence College.

The ceremony was attended by the Senate chairman, the speaker of the National Assembly, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Staff Committee and services chiefs.

Outlining national security imperatives in a two-hour interaction with the participants, President Musharraf said Pakistan had a strong defence and a stable economy but the country should guard against extremism in the society to sustain its economic progress as well as its eminent position in the comity of nations.

“We are determined to stamp out terrorism with force as it is in our own national interest — and simultaneously the world must address underlying causes of the menace including lingering political disputes like Palestine and Kashmir,” he stated.

At the same time, the president underlined the need to address the malaise of religious extremism and sectarianism and called for promoting tolerance in accordance with the tenets of Islam.

He told the participants, including members of the upper and lower houses of parliament, journalists, defence experts, businessmen and bureaucrats, that it was the only way Pakistan would be able to maintain law and order, improve its image and move forward as a moderate, enlightened and a progressive society.

“We are following a comprehensive strategy to bring about a societal transformation as we have to change mindsets from an extremist to a tolerant and moderate society.”

Commenting on the registration and bringing the education system of madressahs into the mainstream education system, the president said the government was engaged in talks with the Wafaqul Madaris, an organization which controls religious schools, and a lot of progress had been made in this regard.

The president emphasised that there was no conflict between Islam and modernization and said: “Modernization is not westernisation but scientific and economic development, which improves the people’s quality of life and Islam stands for the well being of people.”

Discussing Pakistan’s defence, he said that the country was adhering to a strategy of defensive deterrence in both conventional and non-conventional fields and had quantified requirements for its army, air force and navy.

However, he said, a strong defence was not the only element of national security in today’s inter-dependent globalized world, where an event taking place in any country had international implications.

“Diplomacy, national cohesion, maintenance of law and order and economic strength are also critical elements of national security — so a good leader has to devise policies while taking into account all considerations in their entirety and complexity,” he said.

Elaborating upon the notions of sovereignty and security, he said that they were not absolute in nature, even the strongest country in the world did not have a 100 per cent security and as far as sovereignty was concerned, it was directly proportional to a country’s economic strength and the degree of dependence on others. “The less we are dependent on others, the more we are sovereign in our decision-making.”

President Musharraf said that ensuring national security was the common responsibility of all segments of the society.

Highlighting achievements in key areas of national security, he said that Pakistan was no longer a rudderless ship in high seas. “Far from that perilous state, we are now moving forward in a clearly defined direction of all-round development. We have put in place a strategy in each area and are moving forward to achieve scientific, technological and industrial development befitting our true potential.”

The president also dwelt upon the importance of economic development and said that continuity of policies in the past six years had resulted in poverty reduction and employment generation. He said that a concise report based on factual surveys and trends on reduction of poverty would soon be released.

The president said that the size of the national economy had grown to $125 billion from $60 billion in 1999, a factor which had strengthened a host of economic areas. Similarly, he said Pakistan’s revenue collection had jumped to Rs700 billion from Rs300 billion, exports had more than doubled to $17 billion from $7.6 billion over the same period, public sector development projects had seen an increase to Rs300 billion from Rs100 billion.

— APP