Pakistan's New Leader Denies Firefight as Mullen Confirms It

The Bush administration has been pressing Pakistan for years to crack down on Islamist fighters in western Pakistan, which U.S. officials consider the most deadly new front in the fight against terrorism and a source of danger to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. They also believe that Pakistan is too sympathetic to Afghanistan's Taliban fighters, who have escalated their war against that nation's government, the United States and its allies. According to the U.S. military, 30 to 40 percent of all attacks in Afghanistan are carried out by extremists operating out of Pakistan.

Zardari discussed a plan to persuade Afghan farmers to plant corn instead of opium to take advantage of rising prices sparked by the burgeoning U.S. ethanol industry. "We can try to grow corn in Afghanistan and give them the same returns they're getting from opium," he said.

Seated near a photograph of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister who was assassinated in December, Zardari said he has asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into her slaying. But he said he is less interested in holding the killers to account than having the United Nations produce an exhaustive document that recognizes his wife's democratic crusade in the face of Islamist extremism.

"I'm not looking to hang three 17-year-olds who were misguided by someone," he said. "We are fighting for a cause that is larger than us."

Zardari reaffirmed Pakistan's position that it should take the lead in battling terrorism. "This side of the border is my problem," Zardari said, adding that if U.S. forces need "permission of sorts" to cross the border, "we can have an understanding on that, but they haven't asked for it."

"If we need help, we call for them. If they need help, they call for us," he added. If the United States has security concerns in Pakistan, "let us know. We'll do it for them."

Zardari said he welcomed U.S. support in bolstering his country's ability to patrol Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan. He also appealed for help confronting an insurgency that has grown increasingly bold in recent months.

"They keep coming up with new ways of war," he said referring to the Marriott Hotel attack. "Obviously, the problem has not gone away, so the medicine needs to be enhanced."

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson in Washington contributed to this report.