Pak Army more worried about threats from militants than India: Zardari

September 19th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said here that his country wants India to be part of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan group, a media report said Friday. We want India to be the part of Friends of Democratic Pakistan and will encourage any Indian investment in this regard, Zardari said while speaking Thursday at the think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), the Nation newspaper reported on its site.

September 19th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that terrorist and militants were deliberately created to achieve certain strategic goals and to counter rival ideology. "Militants and militancy were not created in a vacuum; they have been the product of a deliberate policy to fight the rival ideology," Zardari said.

September 17th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - An editorial in one of the leading English dailies of Pakistan has highlighted that President Asif Ali Zardari is being unnecessarily targeted and criticized by certain quarters in the country even if he attempts to address the long pending issues with India in his bid to de-escalate tension between the two neighbour countries. The Daily Times editorial said while Zardari is condemned for his overture to India, similar actions taken by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif goes unnoticed in the country.

July 8th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - In the first candid admission of its kind by any Pakistani ruler, President Asif Ali Zardari has conceded that terrorist elements were created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives by Islamabad. The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 (terrorist attack on America) brought things into a new light, Zardari said in what he called a candid admission of the realities in an interactive meeting with former bureaucrats Tuesday night at the presidency.

July 6th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari says targeting the Taliban rather than India does not rankle his army because the two nuclear armed countries no longer pose threats to each others territories. "It rankles the small mind," he told the Daily Telegraph in an interview published Monday.

July 6th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan President Asif Zardari has said he would like to be remembered in Pakistan for creating a country free of militancy. "I would love to be remembered for creating a Pakistan where militancy - I know it can't totally be diminished - is defeated," The Telegraph quoted Zardari, as saying.

July 1st, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said Wednesday the military operation against the Taliban will continue till the militants are eliminated from the country. Zardari made the comments during a meeting with Prime Minster Yousaf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani at Aiwan-e-Sadr.

June 24th, 2009 BRUSSELS - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that India is no longer a military threat to Pakistan, rather it is the Taliban which is threatening peace in the region as well as in the whole world. Talking to a private television channel ahead of the first summit between the European Union (EU) and Pakistan here, Zardari said both India and Pakistan do not have any ill-feelings against each other, and both the countries have good intentions.

June 19th, 2009 BRUSSELS - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari during a meeting here with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Friday urged her to play a role for restoration of talks between Islamabad and New Delhi, a media report said. Apprising her of the ongoing military operation against the Taliban, Zardari said Pakistan wants peace and has continued its offensives against the terrorists, Geo TV said.

May 17th, 2009 LONDON - After announcing an 'all out war' against the Taliban and other extremists in the Swat Valley, and claiming to have sanitized scores of militants in the region, Pakistan is planning to extend its war to the lawless bastion of Al-Qaeda where Osama bin Laden is supposedly hiding. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the Swat offensive would be extended to Waziristan, and areas close to the tribal regions along the Afghanistan border.

May 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Responding strongly to critics of his administration in the United States, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said on Sunday that the war against extremists and militants in the tribal badlands had begun much before the 9/11 strikes across America. "It's a war of our existence," Zardari told NBC News's Meet the Press.

May 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Putting aside continuous US demands for shifting its troops from the eastern Indian border to the Western border along Afghanistan to focus more on the Taliban's surge, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the move is not possible. "Half of our army is deployed on Indo-Pak Eastern boarder and we cannot move army from there for their deployment on Western border," The News quoted Zardari, as saying.

May 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said he is eager to start talks with India soon to establish peace between both the nations. Zardari, who is in Washington to take part in a trilateral summit with his US and Afghanistan counterparts, said he was waiting for the Indian general elections to get over so that peace initiatives could be resumed, which was disrupted after the heightened tension in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

May 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Dispelling fears about the safety of the nuclear arsenal of the country, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the country's nuclear weapons are in safe custody. In an interview with a US television channel, Zardari ruled out threats posed by the militants to the nuclear weapons, as long as the military exists in the country.

April 8th, 2009 LONDON - For the first time Pakistan has admitted that nine terrorists who were killed in the commando operation during the November 26-29 siege in Mumbai last year may have been born in Pakistan. In an interview to The Independent, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said that Islamabad is fully co-operating with New Delhi in the 26/11 investigations, which is still on.