India not a threat: Zardari

Lalit K Jha
Washington, May 10 (PTI) President Asif Ali Zardari
has said India is not a threat to Pakistan and it is facing
danger from the terrorists inside the country.

"Well, I am already on record. I have never considered
India a threat," Zardari said in an interview on the PBS news
channel's popular show "Newshour With Jim Lehrer" Saturday.

This is the first time a top Pakistani leader has
publicly said that India is not a threat to his country; a
fact which Obama Administration has been trying to convince
Zardari and the Pakistan Army for quite some time now.

"I have always considered India a neighbour, which we
want to improve our relationship with. We have had some cold
times and we have had some hard times with them. We have gone
to war thrice, but democracies are always trying to improve
relationships," Zardari said while responding to a question
about "which being the greatest threat to Pakistan? India, or
the militants."

Last month, at a White House press conference held on
the occassion of his 100 days in office, Obama had said such a
believe against India by the Pakistani establishment was
"misguided".

It is believed that both Obama and US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton in their meetings with Zardari this week
impressed upon him that Pakistan should no longer consider
India as a primary threat and rather concentrate its energies
on fighting terrorism inside the country.

However, there has been no official word from the
Obama Administration in this regard so far after the meetings.

While responding the question about moving troops from
Indian border to the tribal areas of Pakistan to fight the war
against terrorism, Zardari said: "Pakistan has already done
so."

In an interview to the CNN on Friday Zardari had said
Pakistan has already move troops from the Indian border and
would do more based on the requirement.

"The fact is that we have moved more troops today and
yesterday and the day before. We moved them according to the
requirement.

"We already have 125,000 personnel there. So when we
need to replace them, we need to improve upon their strength,
we do that," Zardari said in response to a question. PTI LKJ
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