Islamabad: Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari has said that he is "disenchanted" with the way India
handled the bilateral relations in the aftermath of the Mumbai
terror attacks as he expected New Delhi to "behave much more
maturely".
"I`m a little disenchanted with India. I expected the
largest democracy in the world to behave much more maturely.
We are facing a threat on the eastern and western borders,"
Zardari said in an interview with Newsweek magazine.
"This new-age terror has created a phenomenon where a
few people can take entire states to war. The fact that these
people happen to belong to Pakistan or India or Bangladesh is
immaterial. They are non-state actors, and states should
behave like states," he said.
Zardari was responding to a question on what would
happen next between the two countries following Pakistan`s
reported demand for the extradition of Ajmal Kasab, the lone
surviving Pakistani attacker sentenced to death by an Indian
court for his role in the Mumbai attacks.
However, diplomatic sources told that Pakistan
has not formally demanded the extradition of Kasab.
A request has been made for access to Kasab or to the
Indian magistrates and police official who recorded his
confession to facilitate the trial of seven suspects in
Pakistan, the sources said.
Asked if he had become a hawk on India, Zardari
replied: "I can never be a hawk. I`m a liberal by nature and
democrat by principles. War is never an option, as far as I?m
concerned."
Replying to a question about the intense US reaction
to the botched car bomb attack in New York by Pakistani-
American Faisal Shahzad, the President said: "I don`t think
you should pay much heed to the rumour mills in Washington or
Islamabad. Shahzad, although of Pakistani origin, is an
American national. There is no cure for badness. But the
cooperation with the US is good."
Zardari also indicated that Pakistan would act on its
own in deciding about launching a military operation against
the Taliban in North Waziristan tribal agency.
Pakistan has been under pressure from the US to move
troops into the region since the arrest of Shahzad as American
investigators believe he received bomb-making training there.
"One works with one`s own game plan. We are fighting
to save Pakistan. So we`re working on it with a map in our
hand. I was in America when the Taliban took Buner (in
northwest Pakistan in April 2009), and the press took me to
town. I told them we`ll handle it, and we did," he said.
Zardari said Pakistani authorities would like to know
who is financing the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban.
"We haven`t got any closer to knowing that," he said.
PTI
