ISLAMABAD – President Asif Ali Zardari expressed concern about political unrest in Gulf nations on Friday but ruled out the possibility of such a situation emerging in Pakistan.
“I don’t think such political unrest can reach Pakistan, as it is a different country that has a strong parliament and a stable democracy,” the president said in an interview with Al-Arabia news channel. Zardari said the restive nations could not be compared with Pakistan because the country was created through a democratic vision under the leadership of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
However, the president added that Pakistan was obviously concerned about the situation in the Gulf countries and the instability in the region, which used to be a very stable and secure area. The president said further that the path of reconciliation should be adopted to resolve all issues.
He said that his late wife, former premier Benazir Bhutto, had talked about reconciliation in the Muslim world in her last book. “So I think confrontation is not the answer, reconciliation is the answer. We feel concerned, we support the system as it is and we want to help, if we can,” he said.
“In the present scenario in Bahrain, there should be a kind of understanding … people should not be provoked into any action,” Zardari added. He said Pakistan respected the decision to dispatch troops to quell the unrest in Bahrain and added that it was a regional issue and not an international one.
The president also said Pakistan was negotiating with the US to get drone technology so that it could use pilot-less drones on its own. He said that the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) campaign in Afghanistan followed the United Nations resolution for action in Afghanistan, but sometimes came across the border into Pakistan because the border was ill-defined.
“These things happened in the past and could happen in future, but we are hoping to put a stop to it,” he said. Zardari said there were various causes of terrorism and poverty was one of them, but it was mainly a “war of mind-sets”. He said Pakistani troops were already stationed in North Waziristan and engaging militants as much as they could. “We cannot stretch too thin and too far,” he said.
The president said Pakistan was hoping to engage India in a dialogue. “We hope India will respond as the largest democracy in the world to the youngest democracy. Whether it starts late or early, is big or small, dialogue is always the right direction,” he said.
