By IANS,
Islamabad : Pakistan’s military institutions are working under the government, a minister asserted Friday at a time of heightened tensions between the civilian and defence administrations over a memo seeking US assistance to ward off a possible coup.
Information Minister Firdaus Ashiq Awan was speaking on the sidelines of an event to commemorate the 84th birth anniversary of late president Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Geo News reported without providing any details.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had asserted that the military should always remain subservient to civilian rule.
All national institutions should perform their functions in their respective domains, Gilani said at the National Defence University (NDU), where the audience included army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
On Dec 27, 2011, Gilani had said: “Nobody can say that he is not under the government.”
Pakistani American businessmna Mansoor Ijaz claims to have last May delivered, at the behest of then Pakistani Ambassador Hussain Haqqani, a memo to the then US military chief Gen. Mike Mullen
to avert a likely military coup. Haqqani denied this but was summoned to Pakistan and sacked.
The Pakistani Supreme Court then set up a judicial commission to probe the issue and it has issued notice to President Asif Ali Zardari to appear before it Jan 9.
Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha and former US National Security Advisor James Jones, as also Haqqani and Ijaz have also been asked to appear before the commission.
Information Minister Awan had created a stir last month when she tearfully announced her resigation at a televised cabinet meeting. This was rejected and she subsequently withdrew it.