The Hindu : Front Page : We’ll defend Pakistan till the last drop of our blood: Zardari

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Thursday, Dec 25, 2008
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Front Page

We’ll defend Pakistan till the last drop of our blood: Zardari

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: A charged debate on national security in the Pakistan parliament’s upper House saw members across party lines express support for the government and the country’s armed forces against “any kind of aggression” by India.

With a well-known international think-tank adding fuel to the fire with information — by its own admission, it was unverified — that India had set a deadline of December 26 for Pakistan to act against militant groups operating in its territory, President Asif Ali Zardari added to the war talk with the pledge that the Pakistani nation would defend itself “till the last drop of our blood.”

Statements by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Interior Ministry head Rehman Malik about the low possibility of war were lost on a day of high rhetoric both in the Senate and in the National Assembly.

Mr. Gilani, speaking in Lahore, said it was his assessment there would be no war between the two countries, even though he said the nation was fully prepared to meet any threat head-on.

Mr. Malik, speaking at a memorial function for Benazir Bhutto in Islamabad, described the leadership of the two countries as “sensible” enough to prevent a war.

In the Senate, where the mood was gung-ho, chairman Raza Rabbani of the Pakistan People’s Party assured the House that India would never be allowed to carry out “surgical strikes” within Pakistan.

Other senators variously accused India of making “baseless” allegations against Pakistan in order to defame it and to cover up its own security lapses, of being an “arrogant” state whose leaders were “underestimating” Pakistan.

Speaking at a cadets’ college in the Sindh province, Mr. Zardari said: “Freedom is the country’s ideology and, being an independent state, its inhabitants will never compromise on the sovereignty of the homeland.”

“[The] Pakistani nation is great and we will defend the country till the last drop of our blood,” he said.

His remarks came as Stratfor, a strategic affairs think-tank, said India had engaged in diplomatic moves to put pressure on Pakistan to act against Islamist militant groups in its territory by December 26, utilising the one month since the Mumbai attacks to ready its armed forces for strikes inside Pakistan when the deadline passed.

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