ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Tuesday that the government had decided to wind up the National Security Council (NSC).

Talking to journalists after inaugurating a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), the prime minister said he and President Asif Ali Zardari had decided in principle to dissolve the NSC.

“A bill will soon be tabled in the National Assembly to wind up the National Security Council and the law minister has been asked to prepare the bill,” the prime minister said.

Mr Gilani said the NSC had been opposed both by the PPP and PML-N at the time of its formation by former president Gen Pervez Musharraf.

About a demand by some opposition parties to register an FIR against the former president for his ‘misdeeds’, Mr Gilani said: “The parliament has not indemnified him yet and it is up to parliament to take whatever decision it deems fit.”

He said the parliament was the supreme national institution and the voice of 160 million people and any decision taken by it should be accepted by everyone.

“The parliament is supreme and sovereign and it can debate all issues. It is the voice of all people and whatever it decides we will accept.”

On the issue of reinstatement of judges, the prime minister said: “I assure the PML-N leadership that I will talk to President Asif Ali Zardari on his return from China to resolve the issue.”

Mr Gilani said the PML-N did not want to take part in lawyers’ long march and it was only interested in reinstatement of the deposed judges.

The prime minister quoted PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif as saying that the PML-N did not want to join the lawyers’ protest programme and its main objective was restoration of judiciary.

Referring to his recent meeting with PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif, Mr Gilani said: “The PML-N has clarified its stance that it did not want to take part in the long march, but was only interested in reinstatement of deposed judges.”

He said he hoped for better relations between the PPP and PML-N, adding that the Centre had no intention of dislodging the provincial government.

Meanwhile, law-enforcement agencies have conveyed serious security concerns to the government over lawyers’ planned protest in Islamabad amid reports about possibility of acts of terrorism taking place during the long march and sit-in.

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