Pakistan Security Council meets

By Paul Anderson
BBC correspondent in Islamabad

This National Security Council is not meant at all to reinforce the president, rather I would say it is meant to impose checks on the president President Musharraf

Pakistan's new National Security Council has met for the first time amid continuing opposition protests that it is trying to usurp power.

It was called in Islamabad to discuss law and order after several months of militant violence across the country.

The council was formed this year as a consultative body to advise government and parliament on national security.

The meeting is reawakening the debate about President Musharraf's commitment to bringing Pakistan back to democracy.

Thursday's meeting addressed Pakistan's deteriorating law-and-order situation, the weeks of killings in Karachi, and anti-Al Qaeda operations on the Afghan border.

'Superior body'

The opposition alliance of religious parties, the MMA, however, was having no part in the talks.

We think the National Security Council will be a parallel or a superior body to the parliament as long as the president remains in uniform Opposition leader Fazal-ur-Rehman

It fears the council - headed by Pakistan's military president, General Musharraf - formalises a role for the army in civilian democracy.

One leader said the council would become a parallel or superior body to parliament as long as General Musharraf continues to hold office as president and army chief at the same time.

The president says he will step down from the army post by the end of the year, but opposition leaders believe he is trying to amass power, not shed it.

After the meeting, President Musharraf said the council was designed to check his powers, not enhance them.

He said by bringing senior commanders into a forum to air their views with civilian leaders, the council would avert the need to impose martial law, as has happened in the past.