Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani: A Mandate Against Musharraf

Pakistan's newly elected Prime Minister, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, 55, was Welcomed to his job last month by food and power shortages, inflation and the threat of terror attacks. In his first interview with a foreign publication since taking office, Gilani told NEWSWEEK's Ron Moreau about his plans to restore order, amend the Constitution to prevent President Pervez Musharraf from dissolving the government, bar unilateral U.S. strikes, restore fired judges to the bench and return Pakistan to the path of economic development.

MOREAU: Your new government is facing a host of problems. What ' s your priority?
GILANI: Political stability leads to economic stability. My priority will be to control the law-and-order situation in the country, so we have to discourage this extremism and terrorism. That's what is affecting our economy.

What specifically can you do to improve law and order?
We need the help of the entire world, because we are fighting terrorism and extremism, though it is our own war. I lost my own leader, Benazir Bhutto, because of this terrorism and extremism. We need job opportunities and an education system [without] madrassas, where the students are being groomed for the Taliban. Force should be kept in the background [or] it will erode the authority of the government.

You have also said that you would talk to the militant groups along the border. What would you say, and to whom?
We are not in favor of talking to the militants and hard-liners. We want to only talk to people who have laid down and decommissioned their arms.

But you are facing militants who have created a state within a state and are making demands on your government.
We will not be blackmailed by them. We won't listen to their demands that are totally unrealistic. If they want us to hand over [jailed] terrorists for talks, that will not happen.

So you ' ll continue to try to stop crossborder movements of militants?
We will discourage that. But at the same time the terrain is so difficult and the border is so lengthy that even if we deploy the whole Pakistan Army there we may not be able to control the frontier.