ISLAMABAD Government leaders and officials on Wednesday discussed the United Nations terms for investigating the assassination of slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Talks focused on how to arrange the funds and flexibility that the global body needs to conduct the investigation.

President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani co-chaired a meeting at Aiwan-e-Sadr in which the status of the United Nations' International Commission on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was reviewed, an official statement said.

The UN has officially sent its terms and conditions for conducting the fact finding inquiry into the December 2007 assassination of Bhutto. The inquiry had been requested by the PPP government.

Among other conditions related to logistics, the UN has asked for $100 million, complete access to required information; and full cooperation of the government agencies.

The crux of the discussion at the presidency was the scope and mandate of the commission and how to finance the probe, a source later revealed.

One proposal that came up during the course of the meeting was to finance the inquiry through assistance from friendly countries.

However, even more tricky were the discussions related to the working of the commission.

The source suggested that the UN has indicated it would like to have a free hand to do its work. However, the government wishes the international commission to work under its terms of reference. 

A suggestion of holding the inquiry under UN auspices with ground work done by local agencies was also discussed.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman later in a press statement said both President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani expressed satisfaction on the progress for setting up the fact-finding commission.

They also thanked UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon and members of the Security Council for their cooperation.