Islamabad, December 21, 2009: Pakistan’s ruling party leaders insisted that they supported their President Asif Ali Zardari and would not oust other top government officials after the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty shielding them from corruption charges.

The party dismissed talk of any confrontation with the judiciary, but defiant moves by party leaders since Wednesday’s sweeping — and popularly hailed — court ruling has so deepened the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed US ally that some analysts gave the government only months to survive in its current form.

The escalating tensions threaten to distract Pakistan’s leadership just as Washington is ramping up the pressure on Islamabad to widen its offensives against Islamist militants to include groups that threaten Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

During a critical meeting of the party leadership on Saturday night, party officials told the media that they respected the courts and that accused members were prepared to face any charges.

However, they also insisted that no Pakistan cabinet minister affected by the loss of the amnesty would be asked to quit — even to burnish the party image — and they said they had full confidence in Zardari, who is constitutionally immune from prosecution in the graft cases against him.

Even Zardari’s position is tenuous because his opponents say they’ll now challenge his eligibility to be president in the first place. Zardari has resisted opposition calls that he resign on moral grounds and has long insisted on his innocence.