I’ll be back: Zardari

ISLAMABAD
Mian Abrar

President Asif Ali Zardari was on Friday said to have emphatically brushed aside rumours about his health, saying he was completely alright and would return to Pakistan soon and disappoint his detractors.
“I was born in Pakistan and I will die in Pakistan,” in an interview with PTV, senior journalist and television anchor Hamid Mir quoted President Zardari as saying. Mir said he had a conversation with Zardari on Friday morning, during which the president told him that speculation and rumours about his health were baseless and completely wrong.
He said the president talked to him for a long time and enquired about the well-being of other journalist friends, and also talked about the situation in Pakistan.
“Those that run from the country run with their kids. My son is in Pakistan. I left him there,” Mir quoted the president as saying. He said Zardari time and again said he was all right and had undergone checkups for some problems, and now the tests were clear and he would return to Pakistan in a few days.
The doctors had advised the president to rest, Mir said. The president remarked that perhaps many of his enemies do not want him to return to his country, said Mir. “They think that I have fled but escape is not an option. I will never leave as I was born in Pakistan and I will die in Pakistan. God Willing, I will return in a few days and my enemies will be disappointed,” Mir quoted the president as saying.
Mir also said that during his conversation with the president, he got the impression that he had deeply studied Urdu literature as he quoted some verses from Faiz Ahmed Faiz to him. The president also talked about the media and his critics, he added.
Mir said Zardari seemed to have recovered completely and said he would meet him after coming to Pakistan.
MYSTERY: Meanwhile, for the third consecutive day after Zardari was flown to Dubai for treatment, mystery continued to shroud the actual cause of the president’s ailment as the Presidency refrained from making any clear comment on whether the president’s indisposition was related to his brain, as being speculated in the media and political circles.
When approached for comments, Presidential Spokesman Farhatullah Babar avoided making a specific comment on the nature of the health problem being faced by the president. “Commenting on health issues is the personal physician’s prerogative. As spokesperson I refrain from commenting on speculative health reports,” he said when asked to comment on the nature of the disease ailing the president.
Meanwhile, an Emirati daily newspaper reported on Friday that President Zardari is to remain under medical observation in Dubai and it could be weeks before he returns.
“It can take two days or even more than two weeks, it all depends on what doctors advise him,” Gulf News said, citing one of Zardari’s close aides at the hospital. “He may leave the hospital and rest in his house under observation of doctors, but we want him to stay here because he needs rest,” the aide said.
TIA:
Zardari likely suffered a transient ischemic attack (TIA), sources said, which can produce stroke-like symptoms but no lasting damage to the brain. A TIA occurs when blood flow to a part of the brain stops for a short period of time, and can produce “stroke-like” symptoms for up to two hours.
“The MRI is clear, but we suspect it may have been that (a TIA),” said one party official who asked not to be identified by name.
Zardari also called Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Friday and told him about his condition. The president said he would return home soon after recovering completely.