India poses no threat to Pakistan: Zardari

NEW YORK - "India has never been a threat to Pakistan," President Asif Ali Zardari was quoted as saying by a major US newspaper on Saturday.

"I, for one, and our democratic government is not scared of Indian influence abroad," he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The president made that statement when asked whether he would consider a free-trade agreement with traditional archenemy India, WSJ's Bret Stephens said Zardari responded "with a string of welcome, perhaps even historic, surprises," saying, "India has never been a threat to Pakistan."

Correspondent Stephens said Zardari "speaks of the militant Islamic groups operating in Kashmir as 'terrorists' - former president Musharraf would more likely have called them 'freedom fighters' - and allows that he has no objection to the India-US nuclear cooperation pact, so long as Pakistan is treated 'at par'.

"Why would we begrudge the largest democracy in the world getting friendly with one of the oldest democracies in the world?"

In his dispatch based on the interview, Stephen wrote, "Not only does Mr Zardari want better ties with Delhi, he notes that 'there is no other economic survival for nations like us. We have to trade with our neighbours first'.

"He (Zardari) imagines Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India's huge infrastructure needs, Pakistani textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestion at Indian ones. For a country that spent most of its existence trying to show that it's the military equal of its neighbour, the agenda amounts to a remarkable recognition of the strides India has made in becoming a true world power.

"But before Pakistan can hope to save itself by completely reshaping the situation on its eastern frontier, it has the more pressing problem of resolving the crisis to its west, in its tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, the dispatch added.

At the outset, Stephens, who interviewed the president in New York last Saturday, said Zardari "crafted his phrases in a tone of command. Pakistan's war, he says, is "my war," its fighter jets "my F-16s," its Intelligence Bureau "my IB." When he discusses Pakistan's economic crisis, he says he looks to the world to "give me $100 billion."