Devil's Advocate: Asif Ali Zardari

NOT ME: Asif Ali Zardari says he can't be Pakistan's Sonia Gandhi for she is too great.

          

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Rajdeep Sardesai

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Keywords: Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif

Karan Thapar: Is it causing a rift in your party? Is it causing differences, as the press in Pakistan suggest?

Asif Ali Zardari: We haven’t really even come the position when we have started to select…

Karan Thapar: So the choice of Prime Minister is still some days away?

Asif Ali Zardari: A few days away.

Karan Thapar: And it is still an open matter?

Asif Ali Zardari: Yeah, sure.

Karan Thapar: Does it need to be someone from Sindh?

Asif Ali Zardari: Pakistan People’s Party is a federal party.

Karan Thapar: So it could be a Punjabi?

Asif Ali Zardari: It could be a Baluchi, it could be a Pathan.

Karan Thapar: In other words it is wide upon at the moment.

Asif Ali Zardari: In other words it could be.

Karan Thapar: Let us turn to the sort of relationship your government would have with India. For the last four years under Pervez Musharraf and Manmohan Singh the two countries believe they have had the best relationship ever. How can you ensure that momentum continues?

Asif Ali Zardari: I think you may probably find the best understanding ever. The kind of relationship I look at, Pakistan People’s Party wants, hasn’t really happened.

Karan Thapar: You mean you are determined to take it to a yet higher stage.

Asif Ali Zardari: I want to take it to a stage of such confidence building that the fear factor diminishes from both angles.

Karan Thapar: How will you do this?

Asif Ali Zardari: People to people contact should be improved and then trade—inter-dependence of trade. If Indian energy, Indian industry depends on Pakistan energy and I depend on Indian market for my product to be sold, then we are both inter-dependent financially, integrated industry-wise. That is people to people contact.

Karan Thapar: So you want to link the two countries together. First, at the level of trade and create inter-dependency.

Asif Ali Zardari: Yes, the idea is India needs to be a superpower. Economic superpower. It cannot go without energy. The energy corridors are with me.

Karan Thapar: And you will guarantee India security of energy if they were to develop the pipeline idea, so that a pipeline goes from Iran via Pakistan to India.

Asif Ali Zardari: By the way, that pipeline is PPP-conceived idea.

Karan Thapar: And you are committed to it?

Asif Ali Zardari: We are committed to it but we have gas otherwise and we have the capacity to build power plants on our coal before India can.

Karan Thapar: So trade barriers and the mindsets that actually discourage people to trade between each other, you are determined to break those.

Asif Ali Zardari: That is the idea.