ISLAMABAD, June 20: President Gen Pervez Musharraf will fulfil his promise to shed his uniform by the Dec 31 deadline. This assurance was reportedly given to MMA secretary-general and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rahman by President Musharraf top aide and secretary of the National Security Council (NSC) Tariq Aziz on Sunday.

Speaking to newsmen over telephone, the Maulana said he received a phone call in Multan from Mr Tariq Aziz who invited him to the inaugural session of the National Security Council scheduled to be held on June 24.

Maulana Fazl said Tariq Aziz gave him an assurance that the president would certainly fulfil part of the commitment relating to his army office as required under the 17th amendment.

The opposition leader told the NSC secretary that a final decision on his attending the meeting would be taken by the supreme council of the MMA which would meet on June 23.

Mr Aziz told Maulana Fazl that a written invitation had been sent at his parliament lodges address, but he thought it appropriate to invite him verbally. Meanwhile, MMA acting president Qazi Hussain Ahmed has convened an extra-ordinary meeting of the MMA supreme council on June 23 at 1pm to discuss the invitation to Maulana Fazl.

MMA's central leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed told Dawn that the supreme council was the ultimate authority to take a decision. He said that recent statements of Gen Musharraf in which he had said that he would reconsider fulfilment of his agreement concerning his army uniform because the MMA had gone back on its commitment to give him a vote of confidence as well as supporting the NSC bill in parliament were disturbing.

Mr Ahmed said the MMA had never committed that it would vote for Gen Musharraf nor had it promised to support the passage of the NSC bill. Moreover, he claimed that the government never took the MMA into confidence on the NSC bill at any stage as it drafted the bill and got it approved from the cabinet and then submitted in parliament.