Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
has said Pakistain has lost over 36,000 innocent men, women and kiddies and suffered a direct economic loss of over $70 billion in the fight against terrorism.
In an interview with leading Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, Mr Zardari, who is in Istanbul to attend a trilateral summit on Afghanistan, said: "No country has made greater contributions and sacrifices in fighting terrorism than Pakistain. We have lost our great leader and my wife Benazir Bhutto at the hands of terrorists. No-one should question our commitment or intentions in fighting the war."
President Abdullah Gul will host the sixth Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistain summit here on Tuesday and President Zardari will meet his Afghan counterpart Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
for the first time since the liquidation on Sept 20 of former Afghan president and peace council head Burhanuddin Rabbani
... the gentlemanly murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan...
and evolve a new strategy on the war against terrorism.
President Zardari said the the late Osama bin Laden
... who knows that it's like to live in the belly of a whale only he's not living...
issue was now `history` and Pakistain was looking forward to a new chapter of relations with the United States. He said the source of the greatest evil of the new millennium had met his eventual fate.
"We should look into the future and ensure that the cut-thoat mindset is defeated. The sooner we stop public criticism and finger-pointing at each other and coordinate our resources, the better it will serve the cause of peace and stability and in the fight against extremism and militancy," he said.
"Our relations should be based on respect for illusory sovereignty and mutual trust."
He said after the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, the international community abandoned the region, leaving "us at the mercy of so-called Jihadis. Today, our innocent citizens are killed mercilessly by these terrorists. This is a historical fact. The international community owes it to Pakistain to support it in the fight against cut-thoat mindset". Mr Zardari said Pakistain was grateful to the Turkish nation for their deep compassion and sublime generosity towards the millions of Paks affected by the floods and the 2005 earthquake.
He said under the present arrangement, visa was no more required for holders of diplomatic and official passports and the eventual goal was a visa-free regime for all citizens and a currency swap agreement to increase bilateral trade.
