ISLAMABAD: Asif Ali Zardari was sworn in as the 12th president of Pakistan yesterday and immediately pledged to work with all neighbors, particularly Afghanistan.
Zardari, the widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, swept the presidential elections on Saturday.
Zardari’s three children and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai attended the swearing-in at the President House here. Zardari later told a news conference with Karzai that the government was following a comprehensive plan on militancy. Both stressed their intention to work together.
US President George W. Bush telephoned Zardari, who is seen as close to the United States, to congratulate him soon after the latter was sworn in as president.
“We shall stand with our neighbors ... and look the problems in the eye and tell the world that we are bigger than the problems,” said Zardari, with a portrait of his assassinated wife on a wall behind him.
Zardari said Pakistan would follow a pragmatic foreign policy. “Pakistan would face all the challenges courageously. The government has chalked out a strategy to combat terrorism, and contacts are under way on the Kashmir issue,” he said. “The people would soon hear good news (on Kashmir) before the Indian polls.”
Zardari said that he was aware of the back-door diplomacy on the Kashmir issue and announced the setting up of a Kashmir committee soon with parliamentary consensus.
Highlighting Pakistan’s close ties with China, Zardari said that he would first visit China and also attend the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.
Zardari said Parliament would decide on whether former President Pervez Musharraf should get an indemnity from any prosecution, adding that he held no ill will against anyone.
Karzai also told the joint press conference that combating terrorism was an issue of importance to both countries. “It is about fighting this menace in the right manner,” he said, adding that he and Zardari were agreed on how the problem should be tackled.
Karzai’s repeated assertion that “it’s unfortunate that Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan are being killed in these terrorist activities” was met with disbelief by the attending journalists.
They queried Karzai’s motives in taking an ethnic line instead of saying Muslims were being killed on both sides of the border.
— With input from agencies
