Zardari rules out shifting troops from Indian border

June 30th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has ruled out any possibility of shifting its troops from the eastern Indian border to the western border with Afghanistan. Addressing a joint press conference with the ISPR spokesman Major General Athar Abbas here, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said Pakistan will not remove its military from the Indian border and deploy it along the western border with Afghanistan.

June 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States has reiterated that Pakistan must move its troops stationed along the Indian border to the western Afghan border to focus more on the terror threat emanating from that area. Addressing a Congressional hearing here, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert O Blake said that Pakistan needed to move more troops from its border with India to the western parts of the country to fight terrorism.

June 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan has moved more troops to its border with Afghanistan than it has to its border with India since the Nov 26 Mumbai terror attacks, according to a top US official. But the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, declined to say how many troops Pakistan has moved from the border with India even as he refuted a suggestion that Pakistani troops there are back to the pre-Mumbai attack levels.

June 3rd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has said that it would not shift its forces from the Indian border to the western border along Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that it is impossible for Islamabad to reduce the number of troops from the Indian border, and the international community especially the western countries are aware of the fact.

May 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Indian Army, which has been keeping a cautious eye on developments across the western border where the security forces have launched a major operation against the Taliban, Tuesday said no thinning out of troops on the Pakistan side of the frontier had been noticed. 'There have been no indications of thinning out of (Pakistani) troops,' a senior Indian Army official told IANS, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

May 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari Sunday said Islamabad is not adding to its nuclear arsenal as it does not need any more, but it would not disclose the location of its weapons to the US. Pakistan is 'not adding to our stockpile as such', Zardari said on NBC's Meet the Press programme.

May 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has reiterated that India is not a threat to Pakistan, and acknowledged that the danger was from the terrorists within the country. 'Well, I am already on record.

May 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that all Madarsas in the countries would be taken over by the government to separate the students from extremism and impart modern as well as religious education to them. Speaking at a community dinner here, Zardari said his government has resolved to bring reforms in the Madarsas system and bring it under the government system.

May 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has renewed his pledge to work for better ties with India, saying Islamabad has shifted an unspecified number of troops from its western border to fight the Taliban. 'I've always considered India a neighbour which we want to improve our relationship with,' Zardari told PBS public television Friday.

May 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan has moved an unspecified number of troops from its border with India to fight the Taliban, President Asif Ali Zardari has said, renewing his pledge to work for better ties with India. He said if need be more troops would be moved out but pointed out that Pakistan's command posts and cantonments were all on the 'southern border' with India.

May 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari says he hopes to build better relations with India after its parliamentary elections and 'if our American friends can help us, they're welcome to.' 'I know they are busy at the moment. Democracies are always willing to work with democracies,' Zardari told reporters after a meeting Thursday with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with his Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

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 - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari says he proposes to start a fresh peace dialogue with India after the Indian elections are over later this month. 'Democracies have never gone to war.

April 27th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has cancelled a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown, who arrived in Pakistan this afternoon after talks in Afghanistan, told reporters on the plane that he would hold a meeting with President Zardari.

April 27th, 2009 British PM: Af-Pak border 'crucible of terrorism'KABUL — The border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan form a "crucible of terrorism" that Western powers must combat for their own safety, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday. Brown was on a one-day visit to Afghanistan in which he toured British bases in the south and discussed strategy with President Hamid Karzai.