Zardari will remain in Pakistan: Official

Dec 21, 2011 |

IANS

Islamabad

Tags:

Asif Ali Zardari is here to stay and has no plans to travel abroad, said an official, refuting reports that the Pakistan president's return from Dubai could be just a 'cameo appearance' and he would later leave for a long convalescence either in London or Dubai.

The president's spokesperson Farhatullah Babar Tuesday contradicted reports that Zardari was planning to leave for London, reported Associated Press of Pakistan.

Babar said the president was in the country and here to stay. There were no plans for travel abroad, he added.

Zardari had suddenly flown out of Pakistan Dec 6 to Dubai where he was admitted in a hospital. His exact health status is not known with reports ranging from a heart attack to a stroke that caused bleeding in his brain. He returned to Pakistan Sunday night.

New York Times quoted some Pakistani and Western officials last week as saying that 'if Zardari returned, it could be only for a cameo appearance before Dec 27', his wife and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's fourth death anniversary Dec 27.

After that, Zardari would probably leave for a long - perhaps permanent - convalescence in London or Dubai, the report quoted officials as saying.

Benazir Bhutto, the first woman prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated in December 2007, after a Pakistan Peoples Party rally in Rawalpindi, just two weeks before the scheduled parliamentary elections of 2008.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/114784" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-0357140324f3f8f4e4f5deee827d17bf" value="form-0357140324f3f8f4e4f5deee827d17bf" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87317980" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>