Resignation will not affect nuclear policy

Islamabad: Pervez Musharraf's departure from the presidency is unlikely to have a significant impact on how Pakistan's nuclear weapons are controlled.

Experts say a ten-member committee, and not just the president, makes decisions on how to use them and only a complete meltdown in governance - still a distant prospect in Pakistan - could put the atomic bomb in the hands of extremists.

"Pakistan's nuclear assets are not one man's property," said Maria Sultan, a defence analyst and director at the London-based South Asian Strategic Stability Institute.

"Any [political] transition in Pakistan will have no effect on Pakistan's nuclear assets because it has a very strong custodial control."

The committee, known as the National Command Authority, is served by a military-dominated organisation with thousands of security forces and intelligence agents whose personnel are closely screened. The nuclear facilities are tightly guarded.

"The reality is that Pakistan's government exists on different levels. One of the levels it exists and works at is in the control of its nuclear weapons," said Patrick Cronin, director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defence University in Washington.

"Where it does not work is in providing effective services, jobs, education and health that people need."

Although one of Asia's poorer nations, Pakistan tested a nuclear bomb in 1998, a year before Musharraf took power.