Zardari rules out leaving office

President Asif Ali Zardari said that leaving office is not an option and no one has asked him to resign, responding to speculation that the military wanted his departure.

“No one has asked for it yet. If someone does, I’ll tell you,” Zardari, who appeared cheerful after having undergone medical treatment in Dubai last month, said in a television interview.
On the question of Haqqani meeting Mansoor Ijaz, Zardari said that he did not ask Haqqani about it.
The memo issue has been given undue publicity, Zardai asserted.
When asked about which decision he would accept if the court and the parliamentary committee made opposite verdicts, he made it clear that the parliament was sovereign and he will back its decision.
Regarding the prime minister’s statement in parliament that he did not want a ‘state within a state’ Zardari highlighted that the premier was all-powerful and he took a firm stance on the issue accordingly.
The president made it clear that his government was not ‘at war’ with the army and judiciary over the Memogate case.
“We are not at war with the court and we are not at war with the military,” he stressed.
“You think it is a clash, but I say it is part of an evolutionary process. This clash will evolve and then simmer down.”
Tensions between the army and civilian government soared over the memo, allegedly delivered to then US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen in May and made public by Mansoor Ijaz in October.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2012.