Zardari wants his own Marshall Plan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 23 (UPI) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said his country needs a sweeping foreign economic recovery plan to overcome many of its challenges.

Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani met separately with Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to the region, to discuss looming economic and security challenges.

Zardari informed the special envoy Pakistan needs its own version of the Marshall Plan to help overcome many of its economic challenges, Pakistan's Daily Times reports.

U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947 envisioned plans for the European Recovery Plan, an economic strategy to reconstruct the national foundations of Western European states in the aftermath of World War II.

Gilani, for his part, urged Washington to develop a reconstruction plan for the tribal regions to help overcome the strain from returning refugees to the area following heated battles between Pakistani forces and Taliban militants.

The prime minister, meanwhile, called on Holbrooke to share intelligence information with Islamabad and provide the country with unmanned aerial drone aircraft to take on al-Qaida- and Taliban-backed militants operating in the volatile tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.

Washington has linked security challenges in Afghanistan to looming issues in Pakistan as the war effort there gains momentum.