Clinton can only waive farm curbs: US

WASHINGTON, Oct 2: The United States has clarified that the legislation seeking to authorise President Bill Clinton to waive sanctions im...

WASHINGTON, Oct 2: The United States has clarified that the legislation seeking to authorise President Bill Clinton to waive sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan would relate to only agriculture and not broader economic or military issues.

“The sanctions waiver legislation pending before the Congress is more narrowly focussed. It deals with agriculture sanctions that were automatically imposed after the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan,” White House press secretary Mike McCurry told media persons here Thursday night.

“I believe there would be some relief or the president would be given some flexibility about those sanctions. I also believe the two governments (India and Pakistan) are concerned about economic sanctions and prohibitions of certain types of military exchanges and I am not aware of any proposal in Congress to change those sanctions,” he said.

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On Wednesday, McCurry had said that Clinton would move to lift sanctions on India and Pakistan only after more progress was achieved in itstalks with the two countries on the issue of signing the Comprehensive Text Ban Treaty (CTBT).

He, however, asserted that Clinton would visit both India and Pakistan if both the countries met US expectations over the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.

McCurry said both India and Pakistan have “jeopardised their working relationship with the US by their decision to conduct nuclear tests,” adding Washington was contemplating a working relationship with India of the kind it has with China.

“The president has been anxious for most of the time he has been president of the United States to go to South Asia, to visit India, to visit Pakistan. He has enormous personal interest in the subcontinent, McCurry said.

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He said Clinton recognised that India was the most populous democracy in the world and that Pakistan was the key to US security interests in the region. “Hence, a close working relationship with both countries is vital.”

McCurry said Hillary and Chelsea Clinton had travelled to the region andtold the president many things about these two countries.

“That only increased his interest in them. But, they jeopardised that by their decision to conduct nuclear tests, and we have been dealing with the fallout, so to speak, of that decision ever since,” he said.

He, however, hoped that the work done by the US with both the governments (of India and Pakistan) and their bilateral efforts to resume foreign secretary-level talks would lead to a situation where Washington can have a constructive working relationship that it seeks with both.