Zardari threatens to shut down madrassas

ISLAMABAD - PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari said that the West invested in Pakistan’s weapons and military but not in its people with the result that the international community had to pay a terrible price for using Pakistan for its short-term political objectives.

“We were exploited under colonialism, manipulated as a tool of cold war intrigue, made surrogates for a war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and when that war was won, Pakistan and Afghanistan were abandoned to the forces of extremism and fanaticism”, he said in his key note address at the Socialist International Congress in Athens, Greece, on Tuesday.

He said that Pakistan was now the Petri dish of international terrorism and that was a product of failed international politics and not our creation.

The PPP leader said Pakistan could still be converted into a successful model of modernity for 1.3 billion Muslims on earth for which the help of the international community was needed.

“We can’t do it alone. We need the help of the world. If we succeed, we will contain extremism and terrorism. But if we fail, the world will fail with us”.