The Muslim Times’ Editor for Pakistan
Credit: Xpress Tribune
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday denied that Pakistani armed forces were involved with militants in Afghanistan.
The president, addressing a joint news conference Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said there was a “residue” of the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, adding that there was drug trade worth billions of dollars going on in Afghanistan and that he had called for the US to pay attention to this matter.
Zardari said that he had met Karzai and that they could not deny that were people from both sides who were involved in militancy. “This is a world problem… they have left the baby with us.”
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad said that nuclear-armed nations were not superior to others.
“(The) nuclear bomb is not going to bring about superiority,” he told the same news conference, where he addressed a predominantly English-speaking audience through a translator.
Ahmadinejad said that Iran’s relationship with nuclear-armed Pakistan was an example of an alliance that “is not because of nuclear bomb or weapons”.
“The foundation of our political relationship is humanitarian and is based on common cultural values,” he said.