Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and powerful Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani have buried the hatchet and resolved to move together, official sources said. “There are no differences now. The two are friends again,” said a senior government official.
The President and the Army Chief were not on the same page on the Memogate scandal that nearly sent the Pakistan People’s Party-led government packing.
“Gen. Kayani telephoned President Zardari and the two discussed national issues. They have vowed to dispel the impression that the Army and the government have differences,” said the official. The phone-call made by Gen. Kayani to Mr Zardari was confirmed by Prime Mini-ster Yousaf Raza Gil-ani himself Saturday night at a news conference also held to dismiss talk of a rift.
Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar also confirmed the phone-call.
The Army and the government have contradictory views on the Memogate scandal. The federation has challenged the court’s auth-ority to hear the Memogate case, while the chiefs of the Army and Inter-Services Intelligence, who believe there is enough evidence suggesting a plot had been hatched against the Army and the country, had called for a thorough probe.
PPP sources said they discussed the Memogate controversy and ostensibly the divergent viewpoint taken by the military leadership in their reply filed with the Supreme Court. During the discussion “a lot many things settled down considerably” and the impression of a clash between the institutions was erased to a great extent. The sources claimed the Army Chief had been trying to contact the President for the past few days but could not reach him on the phone.