Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has not ruled out the possibility of a power-sharing deal with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in the future, but at the same time said the emotional wounds caused by his wife Benazir Bhutto's killing were 'too deep' to think of such an arrangement.
Asked if he would agree to a power-sharing deal with Musharraf, Zardari told a magazine: "It's too early and our wounds are too deep to think of having any working relationship with the ruling party or President Pervez Musharraf."
Zardari told the magazine that he had to wait with Bhutto's body for over an hour at the Mohenjodaro airport without any police guards or security.
They (authorities) asked me to arrive at Karachi. I forced myself on them by saying that my children and I would like to go with her in her final journey," Zardari said, referring to his return to Pakistan from Dubai after Bhutto was assassinated on December 27.
"I even inquired whether they had night landing facility at Naudero (Bhutto's ancestral village). They said yes, but when we reached Sukkur, they put us in a helicopter that took us to Mohenjodara," said Zardari.
"There were no cars while I had my entire family with me. There was just one battered ambulance and one twin cabin," he said.
"I, my son Bilawal, and my mother traveled with the coffin from Mohenjodaro for two hours in that battered ambulance. These people are very callous and still have no remorse," said Zardari.
He also refuted the government's claim that he had objected to a post mortem on Bhutto's body. "I had no objection against her autopsy because they did not need permission as the state had the right by law. Doctors are scared to speak the truth today but will speak the truth one day. They took X-rays but no CT scans even though a CT scanner was available at the hospital," said Zardari.
"The state could have kept the body in the morgue and then asked me in the hospital for an autopsy and then the scenario would have been different," he said.
Speaking about the security provided to Bhutto, Zardari said it was the government's duty to have enough police deployment to control the crowd outside the venue of Bhutto's last election rally at Rawalpindi.
"The crowds should have been kept away from being so close to her vehicle. No political party has the strength to have such elaborate security," he said.
"It's a very immature statement that suicide bombers cannot be stopped. How come we are always the targets and they are not? Had there been enough security, this could have been avoided," rued Zardari.
"We are still deliberating about whether someone prompted her to come out of the sunroof (of her armoured vehicle) or not because they were all senior party workers and I think they all got misled by some miscreants, who were chanting slogans in front of the vehicle," he said