CIA, ISI together created Taliban, says Zardari

In a frank admission, Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari on Monday said America's intelligence agency CIA and his country's ISI together created the "monster" called Taliban.

Taliban was "part of our past and your past, and the ISI and CIA created them together," Zardari told the NBC news channel in an interview.

"There is a war," the president said. "It (the Taliban) was (a) monster created by all of us... we forgot to make a cure for it."

"It's a war of our existence. We've been fighting this war much before they attacked 9/11. They're kind of a cancer created by both of us, Pakistan and America and the world," he said when asked whether there was any war inside Pakistan.

He also accused the US of supporting the military rule of Pervez Musharraf who was alleged to be taking side of the Taliban.

"But, the game changed after 9/11 when US decided to root out this threat and Pakistan was straddling both sides," the Pakistani president said.

But he disagreed with the popular belief in the US that the Pakistan military and intelligence services still have sympathies for the Taliban.

"I think General Musharraf may have had a mindset to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. But certainly not on our watch. We don't have that thought process at all," Zardari said.

Asked about who is in control of the country, he or the military, Zardari said: "military is in control of their hemisphere and I'm in control of the whole country."

Zardari said he could overrule them (military) and not otherwise. "The Parliament has final say. It's the Parliament form of government, and I am a product of the Parliament."

Earlier, Zardari in an another interview had said that India was not a "threat" to his country and that Pakistan had moved some of its forces from its Indian border to western frontier to eliminate Taliban in its tribal belt.