KARACHI: Asif Ali Zardari, the former president and co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, has ruled out a nuclear war between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, saying that no side would risk using an atomic bomb as a “weapon of aggression”.

“You can develop it, you can have it, you can display a photograph of it but nuclear weapon is no joke,” he said in an interview with television channel Russia Today. He was asked whether there was any possibility of a nuclear clash between the two nations over the issue of Kashmir.

Mr Zardari attributed the current tension in bilateral ties to the situation in Kashmir. “Look at it from the fact that how many Kashmiris are residing in Pakistan. In fact, our current prime minister is also a Kashmiri.

“It’s about time for the world to stop pointing fingers at each other and think how we can get rid of this menace,” he said.

When asked to comment over the Panama leaks controversy, he said that his party had criticised the prime minister and his family because they had been named in it.

However, when asked about Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan’s allegations against him about corruption, he said that Imran’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had given Rs30 million to an institution associated with the Taliban.

Talking about the US drone strikes inside Pakistani territory, Mr Zardari said that during his tenure he had repeatedly asked for the drone technology to be handed over to Pakistan in order to achieve maximum results.

“The effect will be different if we use it instead of the US. Currently we are using F-16s to bomb terrorist hideouts, but we are short on those jets too.

“It won’t make much of a difference to the US or any other country opposing it if we are given eight or so fighter jets,” Zardari maintained.

When asked to comment about the presence of Osama bin Laden near the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, he denied that Osama was living just across the academy.

“He was living in Abbottabad city, it’s just like living in any other big city where [we] can’t just check every other house.

“We don’t have as many intelligence resources as the United States; still they couldn’t catch him [Osama] in Afghanistan where they carried out a massive manhunt. Then how come they expected us to locate him in a place where he slipped in despite all available US intelligence,” said the former president.

Commenting on the exit of Britain from the European Union and how this development will affect Pakistan, Zardari said: “It is a big issue as lots of things have to be tied up and trade deals to be re-negotiated”.

He was of the opinion that Brexit would definitely have an impact on Pakistan and other trading partners, but “let’s see how it settles, how the issue unfolds”.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2016