pkpatriotic
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Zardari seeks 100 billion dollars for Pakistan survival
Masood Haider
Saturday, 04 Oct, 2008
NEW YORK: Citing the threats by the militants on Pakistans border and the imminent economic meltdown, President Asif Ali Zardari, has asked the international community to give Pakistan $ 100 billion in grant to stave off the dual threats which undermine the very survival of the country.
'I need your help, if we fall, if we can't do it, you can't do it,' Zardari repeatedly said in an interview with Wall Street Journals columnist Brent Stephens, published Saturday.
In the interview Zardari also called for a broader free trade agreement with India saying 'India has never been a threat to Pakistan,' adding that 'I, for one, and our democratic government is not scared of Indian influence abroad.'
Stephens said in his column that Zardari spoke of the militant groups operating in occpied Kashmir as 'terrorists' and said he had no objection to the India-US nuclear cooperation pact, so long as Pakistan was treated 'at par.'
'Why would we begrudge the largest democracy in the world getting friendly with one of the oldest democracies in the world?,' Zardari was quoted as saying.
On Mr Zardaris request for $100 billion in grant, Stephens said Zardari 'has a simple and powerful argument to make that the world cannot allow his government to fail not when it's becoming increasingly plausible that Pakistan itself, with its stockpile of as many as 200 nuclear warheads, could be toppled by al Qaeda and its allies.'
In asking the international community for infusion of $100 billion in Pakistan, Stephens said Zardari was keen to insist that it not be described as aid.
'Aid is proven through the researches of the World Bank . . . [to be] bad for a country,' Zardari told WSJ. 'I'm looking for temporary relief for my budgetary support and cash for my treasury which does not need to be spent by me. It is not something I want to spend. But [it] will stop the [outflow] of my capital every time there is a bomb blast...In this situation, how do I create capital confidence, how do I create businessmen's confidence?' Stephens quoted Zardari as saying.
On US-Pakistan differences to conduct the war on terror along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, in the North West Frontier Province, Stephen's said 'Mr. Zardari was anxious to downplay any differences with the US. 'I am not going to fall for this position that it's an unpopular thing to be America's friend. I am America's friend,' Zardari reiterated.
On the incident about the firing on the US aircraft by Pakistani army, Zardari told WSJ 'it was merely an incident, and while incidents do happen, they are not always important.' He went off the record to describe sensitive military subjects, but acknowledged that the US was carrying out Predator missile strikes on Pakistani soil with his government's consent. 'We have an understanding, in the sense that we're going after an enemy together.'
Zardari, Stephens maintained, also conceded 'the problem that had bedeviled past efforts at US-Pakistani cooperation, particularly in intelligence sharing: the widely held suspicion that Pakistani intelligence services continue to cooperate with, and even arm, the Taliban.'
'You know, you keep an uglier alternative around so that you may not be asked to leave,' he said, in reference to Mr Musharraf's claim of fighting militants with one hand while protecting them with the other. Mr Zardari refused to go into further detail other than to say he 'solved the problem.'
Zardari hoped that with the intelligence problem out of the way, a new era of cooperation can open up with the US. 'We want to be able to share [U.S.] intelligence,' he told WSJ. 'We need helicopters, we need night goggles, we need equipment of that sort.'
Zardari stressed the need for precision and finesse in fighting militants, rather than employing a large-scale military force. 'My eventual concept is that we should be taking them on as they are, as criminals.'
Referring to reports that Pakistan has deployed F-16s against insurgents, in part because the army's own frontier troops have been routinely routed in ground fighting, he said the troops'problems aren't simply tactical. 'What kind of a joke is this that I cannot pay my security personnel more than the Talibs are paying?' he said. 'Those terrorists are paying their soldiers 10,000 rupees; I'm paying seven or six thousand rupees.'
'The effects of such a disparity are increasingly evident. The recent bombing of Islamabad's Marriott hotel, in an area that is under particularly tight security controls, is a fresh reminder that Pakistan's terrorist problem extends well beyond the tribal hinterlands,' Stephens quoted Zardari as saying.
Masood Haider
Saturday, 04 Oct, 2008
NEW YORK: Citing the threats by the militants on Pakistans border and the imminent economic meltdown, President Asif Ali Zardari, has asked the international community to give Pakistan $ 100 billion in grant to stave off the dual threats which undermine the very survival of the country.
'I need your help, if we fall, if we can't do it, you can't do it,' Zardari repeatedly said in an interview with Wall Street Journals columnist Brent Stephens, published Saturday.
In the interview Zardari also called for a broader free trade agreement with India saying 'India has never been a threat to Pakistan,' adding that 'I, for one, and our democratic government is not scared of Indian influence abroad.'
Stephens said in his column that Zardari spoke of the militant groups operating in occpied Kashmir as 'terrorists' and said he had no objection to the India-US nuclear cooperation pact, so long as Pakistan was treated 'at par.'
'Why would we begrudge the largest democracy in the world getting friendly with one of the oldest democracies in the world?,' Zardari was quoted as saying.
On Mr Zardaris request for $100 billion in grant, Stephens said Zardari 'has a simple and powerful argument to make that the world cannot allow his government to fail not when it's becoming increasingly plausible that Pakistan itself, with its stockpile of as many as 200 nuclear warheads, could be toppled by al Qaeda and its allies.'
In asking the international community for infusion of $100 billion in Pakistan, Stephens said Zardari was keen to insist that it not be described as aid.
'Aid is proven through the researches of the World Bank . . . [to be] bad for a country,' Zardari told WSJ. 'I'm looking for temporary relief for my budgetary support and cash for my treasury which does not need to be spent by me. It is not something I want to spend. But [it] will stop the [outflow] of my capital every time there is a bomb blast...In this situation, how do I create capital confidence, how do I create businessmen's confidence?' Stephens quoted Zardari as saying.
On US-Pakistan differences to conduct the war on terror along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, in the North West Frontier Province, Stephen's said 'Mr. Zardari was anxious to downplay any differences with the US. 'I am not going to fall for this position that it's an unpopular thing to be America's friend. I am America's friend,' Zardari reiterated.
On the incident about the firing on the US aircraft by Pakistani army, Zardari told WSJ 'it was merely an incident, and while incidents do happen, they are not always important.' He went off the record to describe sensitive military subjects, but acknowledged that the US was carrying out Predator missile strikes on Pakistani soil with his government's consent. 'We have an understanding, in the sense that we're going after an enemy together.'
Zardari, Stephens maintained, also conceded 'the problem that had bedeviled past efforts at US-Pakistani cooperation, particularly in intelligence sharing: the widely held suspicion that Pakistani intelligence services continue to cooperate with, and even arm, the Taliban.'
'You know, you keep an uglier alternative around so that you may not be asked to leave,' he said, in reference to Mr Musharraf's claim of fighting militants with one hand while protecting them with the other. Mr Zardari refused to go into further detail other than to say he 'solved the problem.'
Zardari hoped that with the intelligence problem out of the way, a new era of cooperation can open up with the US. 'We want to be able to share [U.S.] intelligence,' he told WSJ. 'We need helicopters, we need night goggles, we need equipment of that sort.'
Zardari stressed the need for precision and finesse in fighting militants, rather than employing a large-scale military force. 'My eventual concept is that we should be taking them on as they are, as criminals.'
Referring to reports that Pakistan has deployed F-16s against insurgents, in part because the army's own frontier troops have been routinely routed in ground fighting, he said the troops'problems aren't simply tactical. 'What kind of a joke is this that I cannot pay my security personnel more than the Talibs are paying?' he said. 'Those terrorists are paying their soldiers 10,000 rupees; I'm paying seven or six thousand rupees.'
'The effects of such a disparity are increasingly evident. The recent bombing of Islamabad's Marriott hotel, in an area that is under particularly tight security controls, is a fresh reminder that Pakistan's terrorist problem extends well beyond the tribal hinterlands,' Stephens quoted Zardari as saying.
its total 100bn$ what we need more i have 1000$ in my accaunt
