Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf warned that any unilateral intervention in his country by coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan would be treated as an invasion, according to an interview with Singapore's English daily The Straits Times published Friday.

 

"Any entry by the United States or coalition forces into Pakistan's tribal areas would be resisted as a breach of Pakistan's sovereignty," Musharraf told the newspaper.

 

Four American Democratic politicians contending for the party's nomination for the race to the White House, have called for U.S. forces now in neighboring Afghanistan to join the Pakistan Army's counter-insurgency campaign and to hunt down Al-Qaida Leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan's tribal areas.

 

The president said, "I challenge anybody coming into our mountains. They would regret that day."

 

He also criticized U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton's proposal to place Pakistan's nuclear weapons under supervision of the U.S. and the UK.

 

He told The Straits Times that her statement was "an intrusion into our privacy, into our sensitivity... She doesn't seem to understand how well-guarded these assets are."

 

During the interview, he also said he would resign if a government that emerged from the coming election sought his impeachment.

 

He told The Straits Times that some countries, unlike many Western media, understood Pakistan's problems.

 

"The Western media want to impose their understanding of democracy and human rights on our developing countries, while China and other eastern countries don't," he said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2008)