Pakistan PM, army chief meet amid crisis

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and chief of military Gen Ashfaq Kayani attended a cabinet meeting on Saturday, in the sparring duo's first encounter since an escalation of a political crisis in the country, media reports said.

Gilani and Kayani attended a meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, Pakistan´s highest decision-making body for security matters, at the Prime Minister's Islamabad residence to discuss crucial issues related to national security and relations with the U.S., reports said.

The meeting was the two men's first face-to-face encounter since an escalation in a heady altercation between Pakitan's military and civilian government that has brought democracy in the nuclear armed Islamic state to what many believe the brink of a collapse.

Earlier on Friday, General Kayani also met the embattled President Asif Ali Zardari, whose ruling party lobbied coalition partners on Friday for a vote of support in the face of intense pressure from the military and the judiciary.

The hour-long meeting fanned speculation that a resolution to the the tense stand-off was imminent, however, no such official announcements were made and local reports said it was still unclear what truly transpired in the meeting at the Presidency.

"The current security situation was discussed," a presidential spokesman said, without giving any details of the meeting, though it was widely seen as a bid to defuse heightened tensions between the government and the military.

Pakistan's political spectrum and the media have been abuzz with rumours of a possible military coup kindled by a controversy involving a diplomatic memo, purportedly crafted by Pakistan's former envoy to the U.S., Husain Haqqani.

The memo seeking American help to stave off a military coup in Pakistan was made public in a newspaper column by Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz last October and marked the beginning of an increasingly tumultuous tussle in the country.

Premier Gilani on Wednesday received an unusually stern warning from the military, of "serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences", after he sacked his defence secretary and criticised the military leadership, especially Kayani in a media interview.

On Friday, Gilani sought support from their coalition partners as his Pakistan People´s Party (PPP) introduced a resolution to endorse democracy, calling on lawmakers to choose between democracy and dictatorship in an emergency parliamentary session.

To be debated in the lower house on Monday, the resolution expressed "full confidence and trust" in the current civilian government and called for all state institutions to operate within the bounds of the nation´s constitution -- a statement seen as an an affront to the military.

However, a cautious Gilani said that the purpose of the move was not an attack on the military, which has ruled the country for more than half of its 64-year history through a series of coups, and still continues to dictate the nation's security and foreign policy.