President General Pervez Musharraf on Friday rebuked critics who have alleged he has failed to do enough to quash a resurgent Taliban, and urged the West to offer assistance rather than criticism. Speaking to an audience of students and academics at the University of Oxford, Musharraf said his government was working hard to remove the Taliban, who have become entrenched in his country's tribal regions."The West and anyone else that criticises us needs to understand — we need understanding — and assistance, instead of criticism," he said. Musharraf did not specify what sort of assistance he required, but he has repeatedly asked for more helicopters and surveillance equipment to be better able to monitor the Pakistan-Afghan border.
"We are doing our best to bring (Pakistan) back to the previous levels of peace, tolerance and prosperity," he said. Musharraf said Pakistan had been trying to separate the Taliban into moderates and extremists, and to co-opt the moderates into helping to identify the militants. "The most dangerous possibility for us is that the Taliban gets converted into an ethnic people's movement," he said Friday. "We cannot let the moderates drift to the extremists. That would be a disaster."