Gilani back downs from a confrontation with powerful military

Gilani back downs from a confrontation with powerful military

Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yousuf raza Gilani on Wednesday appeared to back down from a confrontation with the top leadership of country’s military, as he withdrew from remarks he had made earlier against powerful army and ISI chiefs saying the country
could not afford friction between its most powerful institutions. 

“I want to dispel the impression that the military leadership acted unconstitutionally or violated rules,” the state television quoted Gilani as saying. “The current situation cannot afford conflict among the institutions,” he added further.

Earlier this month, Gilani had accused both the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and DG ISI, Ahmed Shuja Pasha of having acted
unconstitutionally by supporting a court investigation of the contentious memo scandal, embroiling the country President and former Ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani.

In an interview with the People`s Daily Online of China, Gilani had criticized the top military leadership for submitting affidavits to the Supreme Court on memo case. He had said that since the both Kayani and Pasha submitted their replies on memogate without
seeking approval of the competent, they were `unconstitutional and illegal`.

On January 13, the military responded with a bald statement warning of “potentially grievous consequences” if Mr. Gilani did not retract his statement.

Gilani’s latest comments have come a day after his high-level meeting with the military chiefs to discuss a possible trilateral summit on Afghanistan’s future and appeared to be a bid to defuse tensions between the powerful army and country’s civilian leadership.

Gilani left here today for Davos to attend the annual summit of the World Economic Forum. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and several other officials were accompanying the Prime Minister.

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Posted by Asma Rafique on Jan 25 2012. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry