PPP man will be Pakistan's President: Zardari

Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that the office of President of Pakistan was the 'right' of his party and the Sindh province. He added that a dedicated worker of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's party would soon be installed at the post.

''The day is not far when a person raising slogans of Benazir Bhutto will become the president of the country,'' The News on Monday quoted him as saying.

The presidency is the right of the PPP and Sindh and the PPP was fighting the war for Pakistan's survival, he added.

The party had rendered sacrifices for the cause of democracy, he noted. ''Our workers, elders and children have given sacrifices. We will not let these sacrifices go waste,'' he said.

''I know it very well that there are some remnants of dictatorship, who want to destabilise the coalition government,'' he said without naming President Pervez Musharraf and his political allies in the Pakistan Muslim league-Q.

''We are committed to taking forward the country. History of a nation does not evolve in a day. Our three leaders have been martyred on the chair on which I am seated now,'' he said.

Zardari also said that the reinstatement of the deposed judges was a political issue, but some political parties had hijacked the judges' issue for their vested interests.

He said that a decision on the issue would be taken after taking a complete view of the relevant laws and the Constitution.

Dismissing reports about differences with main ally PML-N, he said he and his fellow leader in the coalition, Nawaz Sharif, had a consensus on the reinstatement of the judges. He added that the judges would be restored following consultations between the two of them.

Zardari said that the 'Simla Agreement' signed by former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto produced the initiative for the solution of the Kashmir issue and the PPP would continue its deliberations with India to resolve the issue.