Zardari urges world to help resolve Kashmir dispute

KARACHI: Former president and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday urged the international community to stop pointing fingers at each other and think of how to resolve the Kashmir issue.

In an interview with foreign news channel RT, Asif Ali Zardari said tensions between Pakistan and India revolve around tensions in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

"We look at it as one Kashmir, while the fact is that there are more Kashmiris in population in Pakistan. Our prime minister is also a Kashmiri and so Kashmir is a long-drawn issue with India," he said.

Urging the world to resolve the Kashmir dispute, the former Pakistan president said this is the time for us to sit together and work out a solution to the long-drawn issue.

Asked about the threats of using nuclear weapons by both nuclear-armed neighbours, Zardari said: "We know that we can show it, we can have a photograph of it, but we can't use a nuclear weapon. These weapons are only to deter each other against any aggression."

"Using a nuclear bomb is, after all, no joke," he added.

The former Pakistani president's interview follows the death of over 50 Kashmiris at the hands of Indian security forces in a recent spate of violence in the occupied territory.

Several Kashmiri leaders including Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, Syed Ali Gilani, have either been arrested or put under house arrest as Indian forces struggle to quell protests in held Kashmir.