Former president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari advised the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to negotiate with the opposition without setting any conditions. Speaking at the golden jubilee ceremony of the Constitution of Pakistan in the National Assembly (NA), the former president asked the government to avoid prerequisites for negotiations with the opposition. He said that even former military dictator Pervez Musharraf acknowledged the wrongdoings he had committed with them in the form of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). He asserted that all had become possible because of dialogue. Zardari said they would safeguard Pakistan at all costs, and then pass on a prosperous country to the next generations. “We had created Pakistan and we will put it back on path of development. The country has huge potential to grow as it produces commodities which are in great demand at international level,” he said. He said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had never used religion for political objectives and would not do so in the future too. Its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, however, was ousted from government in sheer violation of the Constitution and also using the religion card, he added. Asif Zardari said being a student of history, he was witness to the key events the country had gone through The former president lamented that fake cases had been registered against him in the past for political reasons, but no corruption allegations were proved against him. He said the Constitution would reign supreme and nobody would be allowed to hold it in abeyance. “The PPP had played its role in safeguarding the Constitution and will continue doing so in future also. The democracy had been weakened over the years but we will make it strong.” He said, “We talked about the rights of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa during our government’s tenure and unanimously got passed the 18th Constitutional Amendment and approved the NFC (National Finance Commission) Award giving provincial autonomy to the federating units.” Unfortunately, he said, the neighboring country was involved in terrorist activities in Balochistan but the only solution for bringing back peace to the province was dialogue. “We will continue to resolve their problems through talks.” Citing the initiatives taken during the last PPP government, Asif Zardari said he had signed an agreement for the swap of currency with five countries but unfortunately it could not continue.