Pakistan spillover from any Iran attack: Musharraf

Madrid, Apr 26: Any US attack on Iran would fuel sectarian tensions in key US ally Pakistan, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview with a Spanish newspaper published today.

''There would be an effect on Pakistan as well, with implications for religious sectarianism, from any operation against Shi'ites in Iran, which Sunnis (in Iran) would suffer just as much,'' Musharraf told El Pais during a visit to Spain.

''Most Pakistanis are anti-American, and that feeling would grow,'' he said.

''But that doesn't mean that public opinion would stop understanding the character of our strategic alliance with Washington, a policy which has served Pakistan well for decades.'' Musharraf, who took power in a coup in 1999, faces Islamist opposition in his strategically vital, nuclear-armed country where violence often flares between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.

The United States and other Western powers are trying to pressure Iran into abandoning a nuclear power programme which they say is meant to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says the programme is for peaceful power generation.

Reuters

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