ISLAMABAD/LAHORE, June 2: The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement concerning Friday’s meeting in which corps commanders endorsed dual offices for President Gen Musharraf has been condemned by various political parties.

At a Saturday press conference in Islamabad, acting parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan accused General Musharraf of presenting the army as a political party and warned that this could lead to a civil war.

Rejecting the ISPR statement, he demanded that the full proceedings of the corps commanders’ meeting be made public.

Meanwhile, at a joint press conference in Lahore, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) president Qazi Hussain Ahmed, secretary general Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan termed the ISPR statement “unconstitutional and unethical.”

They said that the corps commanders’ meeting constituted an effort to involve the army leadership in the political survival of a ruler who has lost all legitimacy.

At the Islamabad conference, also attended by PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal, Mr Nisar accused the president of using the army to threaten the media and legal community and said the nation wanted to know the names of those who endorsed General Musharraf’s dual positions.

He declared that General Musharraf had used his last trump card in convening the corps commanders’ meeting, given that his plan to use the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had failed.

“The message given to the nation through the ISPR press release is detrimental to national integrity and in violation of rules,” said Mr Nisar. “We condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

He said that everyone struggling for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary is a patriotic Pakistani. Without naming a party, he said that “anti-state elements are those who have become opening batsmen for General Musharraf.”

The MMA and PTI statement accused General Musharraf of using the armed forces for his own survival and asserted that the public does not know exactly what transpired in Friday’s meeting. If ISPR press release was an accurate report, said the statement, it points to a fundamental departure from the role of the armed forces as laid down in the Constitution and the Army Act.

Article 243 of the Constitution states that the federal government shall control the armed forces, while Article 244 makes it obligatory for every member of the armed forces to take an oath providing that “I will not engage myself with political activity whatsoever and I will honestly and faithfully serve Pakistan in the Pakistan Army (Navy and Air Force) as required by and under the law.”

The joint statement said that Pakistan expects its army to be a strictly professional force that does not embroil itself in controversy and remains aloof from politics. It said that by dragging the army into politics, the current government had harmed the relationship between the armed forces and the citizens.

The MMA and Tehrik-i-Insaaf leadership demanded the immediate resignation of General Musharraf from the posts of president and army chief, and said that leaders in exile should return to participate in the election process. They said that a neutral interim national government should immediately conduct free, fair and transparent elections, and that the election commission should be reconstituted in consultation with the country’s major parliamentary parties. They also demanded the complete independence of the judiciary.

MMA leader Qazi Hussain also discussed the ISPR press release with PML-N leaders Mian Nawaz Sharif, Raja Zafarul Haq, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) leader Mahmud Khan Achakzai and Awami National Party (ANP) leader Asfandyar Wali.