Zardari hands over nuclear weapons keys to Gilani

November 28, 2009 01:01 am | Updated December 17, 2016 05:28 am IST - Islamabad

NUCLER POWERED: Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during a press conference in Islamabad. Gilani now controls the country's nuclear weapons after President Zardari divested himself of the powers of Chairman of the National Command Authority. File photo

NUCLER POWERED: Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during a press conference in Islamabad. Gilani now controls the country's nuclear weapons after President Zardari divested himself of the powers of Chairman of the National Command Authority. File photo

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari appeared to take the first step towards handing executive powers to the elected Prime Minister on Friday by divesting himself of the powers of the head of the nuclear chain of command and transferring them to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.

Ordinance reissued

In a late night development, Mr. Zardari reissued the National Command Authority (NCA) Ordinance 2009, amending it in the process to make the Prime Minister the Chairman of the body that has overall control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

The Ordinance was first passed by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in October 2007, and was part of his effort to ensure that the NCA would be under his control after the February 2008 elections.

It was among the 37 ordinances that the Supreme Court had asked the Government to present to Parliament for its approval by the end of this month.

However, Mr. Zardari decided to repromulgate 28 of the ordinances late on Thursday, his spokesman Farahtullah Babar said in a release.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.