President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday that Pakistan's powerful army was not “distancing” itself from him following the defeat of his political allies in elections last month. Musharraf said claims of a rift between him and the military were being spread by people trying to destabilize the nuclear-armed nation. “It is absolutely wrong that the army is distancing itself from me. There is no truth in it,” Musharraf said at the inauguration of a state television station in the central city of Multan. It was the second time in two days that Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led “war on terror,” touched on his relations with the 600,000-strong military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 60-year existence. Musharraf faces the prospect of a hostile parliament after the parties of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and former premier Nawaz Sharif won the Febr. 18 elections and formed a coalition. On Friday Musharraf, who until then had kept a low profile since the elections, said that the army could not forget him. “It is my army, it is the army of Pakistan. It cannot forget me,” state media quoted Musharraf as saying at an official function in the southern city of Jacobabad. Musharraf's remarks follow a statement by the new army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, vowing full support to the elected government while saying that any split with the president was not in the country's interest. The statement issued after a corps commanders meeting on Thursday said that Kayani “observed that an impression is being created about ‘distancing of the army from the president.'” Kayani “pointed out that any kind of schism, at any level, under the circumstances would not be in the larger interest of the nation,” the statement said, adding that Kayani called for a “harmonized relationship between various pillars of the state.” Musharraf on Saturday urged the incoming government to put politics on the backburner, concentrate on good governance, economic management and peace and order. “We need a stable government and peace in society. These are basic requirements to run the country's affairs,” he added. __
