Pakistan COAS remarks seen to send strong signals to Supreme Court

In a remark that could presage another standoff stage with the Supreme Court, Pakistan's powerful army chief general Ashfaq Parvez Kayani yesterday said no single institution could define national interests or exceed its role under the constitution.

This comes after the court issued orders against two retired generals for rigging the 1990 polls.

Noting that Pakistan was going through a "defining phase", Kayani said, "No individual or institution has the monopoly to decide what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest.

"It should emerge only through a consensus and all Pakistanis have a right to express their opinions."

Addressing a group of officers at the army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, Kayani further said, "Weakening of the institutions and trying to assume more than one's due role will set us back. We owe it to the future of Pakistan to lay correct foundations today.

"We should not be carried away by short-term considerations which may have greater negative consequences in the future".