Dubai: Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto arrived in Dubai yesterday along with her husband Asif Ali Zardari quashing rumours about their strained relations.
"Bhutto and Zardari will celebrate Eid Al Fitr together with their three children - Asfa, Bilawal and Bakhtawar - in Dubai," said a close friend.
"She needs a break after hectic travel and political meetings. The family will stay together especially at a time when Bhutto is preparing to return to Pakistan to launch afresh a political struggle for democracy," he said.
Rumours about Bhutto-Zardari separation were rife early this year after a female Pakistani journalist reported the matter in an Indian magazine.
However, a spokesperson of the Pakistan People Party, which Bhutto heads, rejected the reports about their split, terming them "baseless propaganda" against the PPP and its leaders.
While Bhutto will return to Karachi on October 18 as per plan after more than eight years in self-exile, Zardari will stay back and baby sit their children. "He will also go back but after some time," said a party source. Since their marriage on December 19, 1987, Bhutto and Zardari have spent only a little more than seven years together.
Zardari spent 11 years in Jail - from 1990 to 1993 and from November 1996 to November 2004. He spent about seven months in Dubai before going to the United States for medical treatment in August 2005. He lived in a flat in New York for about two years, while his family lived in Dubai. The arrival of the couple in Dubai yesterday brought smiles on many faces especially those of PPP supporters.
