Bhutto Installs Her Cabinet : She Takes 2 Posts, Keeps Zia’s Foreign Minister

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto installed her Cabinet on Sunday, holding the defense and finance portfolios for herself and naming a foreign minister who served under the late president of Pakistan.

The moves followed her orders Saturday to free political prisoners convicted under martial law and commute all death sentences. Those orders are expected to be acted on by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

In a news conference, Bhutto said the appointment of Sahabzada Yaqub Khan to head the Foreign Ministry is a signal of continuity in Pakistan’s stand on the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan, with help from the United States, supports Muslim anti-Communist guerrillas fighting the Soviet-backed Kabul government and shelters more than 3 million Afghan war refugees.

Maintains Policy

Despite her bitter opposition to the late President Zia ul-Haq, Bhutto said during her election campaign that she would maintain his Afghan policy.

Zia died in an Aug. 17 plane crash.

Bhutto, who took the oath of office Friday, stocked her government with stalwarts of her Pakistan People’s Party except for Yaqub Khan.

All 10 Cabinet ministers and seven ministers of state, the second echelon in rank, took the oath of office Sunday.

In one of the appointments, Bhutto named Yahya Bakhtiar as attorney general, the same post he held in the 1970s under her father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.