I didn't threaten Pak: Armitage

New Delhi: Former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage says his alleged military threat against Pakistan "did not happen."

A day after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said that Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan if it did not cooperate with America's War on Terror post 9/11, Armitage said he was shocked.

"Gosh, I've never made a threat in my life that I couldn't back up. And since I wasn't authorised to say such a thing and hence I couldn't back that threat, I never said it,” Armitage said.

Armitage said though he did have an "interesting" conversation with Pakistan’s Lt. Gen Mahmoud after 9/11, it did not amount to a threat.

“How could it have been misconstrued, or otherwise? Well, I did have a long and interesting conversation with Lt Gen Mahmoud, the head of Pakistani intelligence, and it was quite strong. And I wanted to make sure he understood the depth of our feeling about what had happened. I also saw this as an opportunity to move forward with Pakistan in a new direction, so we had a very straight forward conversation," he said.

Armitage said neither he nor anyone else at the State Department who was at the meeting remembers threatening US military force against Pakistan unless it joined the US war on terror.

In a CBS 60 Minutes interview, Musharraf said Armitage told Pakistan's intelligence director to "be prepared to go back to the Stone Age" if Pakistan didn't help in the fight against terror after 9/11.

Musharraf, whose remarks were distributed to the media, said he reacted to the threat in a responsible way. "One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that's what I did," Musharraf said.