Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Thursday issued some unprecedented remarks against the country’s military and premier intelligence service. During a speech before parliament, Gilani said that the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate cannot be a “state within a state” and must “be answerable to this parliament.” Responding to reports that the defense ministry had told the Supreme Court that it had no control over the armed forces or the ISI, the prime minister told lawmakers that “if [the military and ISI] say that they are not under the ministry of defense, then we should get out of this slavery, then this parliament has no importance, this system has no importance, then you are not sovereign.” Gilani’s statements are perhaps the toughest remarks made against the country’s powerful security establishment that has directly ruled the country for 33 of its 64 years.