Zardari says only PCNS decision to be accepted

President Asif Ali Zardari, in an interview with a private TV channel, has that he would accept only the decision of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) in the memo case and that he was ready to negotiate with opposition leader Mian Nawaz Sharif on all issues, including early general elections.
Talking to the channel, the president said there was no confrontation between the government, judiciary and army.
“I believe parliament is sovereign,” he said when asked whose decision would be accepted as memo investigations were being carried out simultaneously by parliament and the Supreme Court.
The president said the memo issue had been given undue media coverage and he had consulted some experts abroad to take legal action against Mansoor Ijaz, the main character in the scandal, but they had advised him that any such move would not be in the interest of the country.
Replying to a question about confrontation among national institutions, the president said he believed there was no confrontation but a process of evolution. “We have no confrontation with the judiciary and army.”
[“You think it’s a fight, I call it a part of evolution. It will evolve and will simmer down in due time,” Reuters quoted him as saying.]
About the three-year extension in service given to Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, he said: “Basically it’s a question of history.”
The president denied reports that his sister Faryal Talpur was going to launch an airline, Indus Airline, and said he would ask Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar to immediately cancel its licence. “My sister has fully devoted her life for politics. We don’t run airlines,” he said.
He said trial of former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf would have had a bad impact on the armed forces. “I did not want to demoralise my and your armed forces. The entire institution would be demoralised if a trial was conducted against Pervez Musharraf,” he said.
President Zardari dispelled a perception that national organisations like PIA, railways and Wapda were inching towards collapse. “Media thinks it is so but I don’t think so. These entities have only weakened.”
Answering a question about former Sindh home minister Zulfiqar Mirza, he recited the couplet: “Dekha jo teer kha kay kameengah ki taraf; anpay hi doston say mulaqat ho gai.”