With his forces battling Taliban in the country's troubled northwest, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari does not see India as the foremost threat and says the "position of being able to take over another state is nullified" after both countries acquired nuclear arms. As his goodwill gestures towards India clubbed with a domestic campaign to end militancy have attracted criticism at home, Zardari says "it rankles the small mind." "It does not rankle the army, because after India and Pakistan became nuclear powers, that position of being able to take over another state is nullified," the President said in an interview to 'The Daily Telegraph'.

In remarks that may give a boost to the US hopes for a united front against al-Qaeda and Taliban, Zardari said that his security forces' operations against militants would in future target figures who were the military's "strategic assets".

Pakistan's powerful military had given its backing in recent days to Zardari's shift from seeing India as the foremost threat to the country towards the danger posed by militancy inside. "I don't think anybody in the establishment supports them (militants) any more," he said. "Military operations are all across the board against any insurgent whether in Karachi, Lahore or whether he is in any part of Pakistan," Zardari said.

Zardari said: "My problem is terror. I have focused myself on terror. The (ruling) PPP has focussed itself against the extremist mindset. Terror is a regional problem, it cuts across borders." "I would love to be remembered for creating a Pakistan where militancy -- I know it can't totally be diminished – is defeated," he said.

... contd.