In US, under-fire Zardari says Pakistan safe

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 9:12 PM Posted by Beijing News


Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari insisted his government was safe hours before Wednesday's White House talks with Afghanistan on how to fight a raging Taliban insurgency.

The summit, one of President Barack Obama's most high-profile diplomatic engagements yet, comes as US lawmakers voice increasing fears that Pakistan is losing the fight against Islamic extremists.

Some 500,000 people are seeking refuge from Pakistan's Swat Valley, a one-time ski resort near the capital Islamabad where the military has launched an offensive after a controversial cease-fire with militants.

Zardari cast the Taliban insurgency as another chapter in Pakistan's long-running tribal and ethnic conflicts.

"They're not threats to my government. They are threats to my security," Zardari told CNN.

"My government is not going to fall when one mountain is taken by one group or the other," Zardari said.

US lawmakers Zardari -- whose wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 -- also said his nation's nuclear arsenal was in secure hands.

But some US lawmakers preparing a giant aid package for Pakistan voiced doubts about Zardari, a civilian who took over last year after nearly a decade of military rule.

"Let me blunt -- Pakistan's pants are on fire," Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman said. "The fire is real, and they need to respond."

"There is a real and present danger to Pakistan's survival, but it comes from inside, not outside the country," he said, faulting the Pakistani military's focus on historic rival India.

Obama has placed Pakistan at the center of the fight against the Taliban's Al-Qaeda allies as he dispatches 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan, in addition to an extra 17,000 already committed.

Two US senators have introduced legislation that would triple US civilian aid to Pakistan to 1.5 billion dollars per year over the next five years.

Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to the region, pledged strong support for Zardari, denying media reports that the United States was reaching out to his arch-rival Nawaz Sharif.

"Pakistan's of such immense importance to the United States, strategically and politically, that our goal must be unambiguously to support and help stabilize a democratic Pakistan headed by its elected president, Asif Ali Zardari," Holbrooke told Congress.

But he stressed that security assistance for Pakistan "has to show results."

"Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out Al-Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders," Holbrooke said.

Zardari later held a 90-minute closed-door meeting trying to "reassure" members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Pakistan's commitment, said Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly.

"Money can't buy you love, as you say it in America, no matter how much it is."





A stuntman walks on a tightrope in China to break a world record. REUTERS/Stringer

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