Zardari urges regional leaders to join hands against drug trafficking

President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday urged regional leaders to join hands to counter drug-trafficking, calling it a major source of funding for militants and terrorists.
Talking separately to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Zardari discussed bilateral relations, regional situation and global issues. The leaders have gathered here in the Tajik capital to attend the Nauruz celebrations and the fifth Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA-V) being hosted by Tajikistan.
President’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said President Zardari urged the leaders to gear up efforts for closer interaction so that the issue of drug trafficking was effectively addressed. The spokesman said the meetings were held in a very cordial atmosphere, in which the leaders had a frank exchange of views on bilateral as well as other matters of mutual interest, particularly peace in the region. He said in his meeting with the Afghan president, Zardari reviewed development projects being funded by Pakistan and were aimed at bringing about a positive change in the lives of the common Afghans.
Goal: The president said the two countries must work together towards attaining the shared goal of peace and prosperity in the region.
President Zardari said Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region as a whole was passing through a defining moment. “It has been the government’s consistent policy to strengthen their relations in all spheres with Afghanistan, as it firmly believes that a peaceful, prosperous and stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s national interest,” he added. He also recalled and termed President Karzai’s recent visit to Islamabad “extremely useful”. The president hoped that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s appeal to all sections of the Afghan society to engage in intra-Afghan dialogue with the Afghan government would receive a positive response.
He said Pakistan and Afghanistan should also work together to extend APTTA (Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement) to the Central Asian countries. He said as they gathered in Dushanbe for RECCA to provide regional integration, he hoped that Afghanistan would give serious consideration to Pakistan’s request for its access to through the Wakhan corridor to Tajikistan. Zardari told his Afghan counterpart that the parliamentary review process for re-engagement with the US and the NATO and ISAF was going on and Pakistan would now engage with the US on the basis of these recommendations. He, however, added that the Pak-US cooperation must be based on respect for Pakistan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. He also invited President Karzai to the quadrilateral Summit to be held in Islamabad later this year.
Iran: President Zardari in his meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the existing-border control regime between the two countries needed to be revisited and further strengthened. Farhatullah Babar said the two leaders discussed the whole gamut of issues and expressed satisfaction over the growing bilateral cooperation between the two countries in diverse fields and agreed to further strengthen their mutually beneficial ties. The two leaders also recalled the recent trilateral summit in Islamabad and termed it a very productive meeting. They were unanimous in the view that together with Afghanistan, they should continue to explore avenues of cooperation. President Zardari said both Pakistan and Iran had vital interest in a stable and peaceful Afghanistan. He noted with satisfaction at the growing cooperation between national security agencies of Pakistan and Iran and urged the need of further expanding the cooperation.