LAHORE, Jan 11: The PPP leadership has requested PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who is considered to be close to the establishment, to help defuse tension between the government and the armed forces.

This was confirmed by a PPP leader who told this correspondent that it would be a test for Chaudhry Shujaat’s skills. “Chaudhry Shujaat has earlier successfully played the role of a mediator between the PPP leadership and the military high command and he is expected to bail out the government also on this occasion,” the leader said.

The tension between the two institutions mounted after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in an interview to the People’s Daily Online of China that affidavits submitted to the Supreme Court by Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI Director General Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha on the memo issue were “unconstitutional and illegal”.

“Our party chief Chaudhry Shujaat is ready to mediate between the army and the government,” PML-Q’s central information secretary Kamil Ali Agha told Dawn.

He said the PML-Q would not mind trying to bridge the gulf between the two institutions because it was in the interest of the country. “Nobody will like clash of institutions.”

Mr Agha said Chaudhry Shujaat had only recently urged all the people concerned to exercise restraint and clear misunderstandings through dialogue.