‘Pakistan nuclear arsenal in safe hands’: Zardari

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday that Pakistan's nuclear installations are in safe hands.

"All Pakistani nuclear installations are under extra security," he told foreign media in an interview. "I want to assure the world that nuclear capabilities in Pakistan are in safe hands," he said.

Zardari said that Pakistani intelligence believes Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead but acknowledged they had no evidence.

"The Americans tell me they don't know, and they are much more equipped than us to trace him. And our own intelligence services obviously think that he does not exist any more, that he is dead," Zardari said.

"But there is no evidence, you cannot take that as a fact," he said. "We are between facts and fiction."

Zardari was responding to reports that Pakistani Taliban in the troubled Swat valley have said they would welcome bin Laden if he wants to visit the former Pakistani hill resort which is now in the hands of Taliban.