UNITED NATIONS, SEPT 22: Pakistan assured the United States of a positive response on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) but the Clinton administration declined to make any commitment on waiving sanctions or intervening in the Kashmir dispute.After a 45-minute meeting between US President Bill Clinton and Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif here last night, Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmad said Islamabad had no objection to signing the CTBT but ``we cannot take a decision as long as there is this atmosphere of coercion and economic sanctions.''At a separate briefing, Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger said Sharif assured Clinton of a positive statement on CTBT during the latter's address to the UN General Assembly tomorrow, but the US President made no commitments to waive sanctions.During the meeting, Sharif sought American assistance in settling the Kashmir issue and other related security matters with India.Clinton expressed American willingness to ``try to behelpful'' but also noted India's consistent opposition to any outside interference in the settlement of the dispute.Berger declined to give details of the talks between the two leaders on the CTBT issue saying he would leave it to the Pakistani PM himself to speak tomorrow.Berger said the conversation between the two leaders focussed very much on non-proliferation issue. He said, the US was engaged in very intensive discussions with both India and Pakistan on non-proliferation issue which was important to get back into track after the recent nuclear explosions in the subcontinent. He underlined the importance of adherence to CTBT by both India and Pakistan.India-Pakistan relations also figured briefly during the talks Clinton had with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday.Asked by an Indian correspondent why no meeting between President Clinton and the Indian Prime Minister had been scheduled, Berger said he believed the Indian leader was not arriving in New York until later this week andapart from that, while there was progress in talks with Pakistan on CTBT, there was still some room left for further progress in the Indo-US talks.India was the largest democracy in the world and Pakistan a traditional friend of the US. One of the reasons why the nuclear testing was such a disappointment to the President was because it impeded US capacity to have close relations with the two countries. There was need to make good progress on non-proliferation so that ``we could improve our relations,'' he said.The state department spokesman indicated that a decision on Clinton's planned visit to the subcontinent would be taken later this week or next week. It depended on the movement of the talks the US had with India and Pakistan.The President was assisted in the talks by US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott and assistant secretary of state for South Asia Rick Inderfurth. On the Pakistani side were foreign minister Sartaj Aziz, commerce minister MohdIshaq Dhar, foreign secretary Shamshed Ahmed and Pakistani ambassador to the UN Riaz Khokhar.Berger dismissed any suggestion that the faith of the international community in the leadership of Clinton might have eroded because of the current controversy surrounding him over the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. On the contrary, he said, the international community recognised the importance of US leadership and the President's own stature and wanted American leadership to continue, particularly at a time when many things were happening in the world which created great uncertainty.
