New Delhi, Jan 30: India and the US continued their battle of nerves today with New Delhi insisting that Washington create a ``positive environment'' by first lifting all economic sanctions it imposed after India's nuclear tests before it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty before September.All morning, the two sides bargained hard over the crucial sequencing of events that would lead towards an eventual deal they could respectively sell to their people and governments. In effect, highly placed sources here said, the dialogue remained stalled because the US side refused to make any gestures, such as lifting the economic sanctions, or at least reducing the negative Entities List, where some 200 Indian companies have been slapped with a US ban on the export of technology.``India has no real problems over signing the CTBT,'' the sources said, adding, ``but all the economic sanctions imposed after the tests must go first. Or, the Entities List must be reduced. After all, the US was the one to impose thesanctions after the tests, they must now make the first gesture to normalise the relationship.'' US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott and his team are said to have pointed out that they had come with no real authority to do either.
