20000202

Clinton seeks

to 'engage'

India on trip

from March 20

WASHINGTON: President Bill Clinton on Tuesday said he would visit India next month in an effort to "engage" the world's largest democracy even though it has failed to sign a nuclear test ban treaty sought by Washington.

"Just as I believe we have to engage China that has a political system very different from ours, we have to engage India that makes decisions that sometimes we don't agree with," Clinton told reporters.

"I'm going because it's the biggest democracy in the world. I think we haven't been working with them enough," he said.

The White House confirmed on Tuesday that Clinton will travel to South Asia during the week of March 20, visiting India and Bangladesh. India announced the trip earlier on Tuesday, saying it hoped the visit would lead to closer relations between the two countries.

"At the invitation of the president of India, President Clinton of the United States will visit India from March 20, 2000 for approximately five days," Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Raminder Singh Jassal told reporters in New Delhi.

"The visit of the U.S. president is expected to pave the way for a qualitatively new and closer relationship between the two democracies."

It would be the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to India since 1978, and the first ever to Bangladesh.

A Bangladesh foreign ministry director-general Sharjil Hasan said at a news briefing in Dhaka on Tuesday, "U.S. President Bill Clinton will visit Bangladesh on March 25." He did not say how long the visit would last.

"The announcement was simultaneously made in Dhaka and Washington at 10.30 GMT on Tuesday," Hasan said, adding that Clinton's visit will be the first by a U.S. president to Bangladesh.

The White House left open the possibility of also visiting Pakistan, saying no decisions had been made about other stops.

The United States has raised concerns about Pakistan's military government that took power in an October 1999 coup, and has criticised Pakistani ties to a Mujahideen group suspected of involvement in the December hijacking of an India Airlines jetliner.

Clinton has said he did not believe Pakistan's government was involved in the hijacking.

Clinton long has expressed a desire to visit South Asia.

But a possible presidential visit in 1998 was scrapped after India conducted a series of nuclear test explosions in May of that year, and Pakistan followed suit with its own tests.

The United States demanded that India and Pakistan sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty -- the same treaty that was rejected by the U.S. Senate last year.

Neither country has signed the treaty, but India has said it would do so once it had built a domestic consensus. Pakistan also has hinted that it could sign the treaty, but would not rush a decision. India also has declared a moratorium on underground nuclear tests.

The United States imposed economic sanctions on India and Pakistan after the tests -- demanding the immediate and unconditional signing of the test ban treaty, a halt to further nuclear testing, and cooperation in other arms control treaty negotiations.

But in December of last year, Washington said it would ease some of the sanctions it imposed by trimming the list of Indian government agencies and firms hit by U.S. export curbs.

Analysts said that move was timed to encourage New Delhi to sign the treaty. However, the U.S. and Indian governments have drawn closer in recent lower-level talks.

Officials in India said Clinton's talks likely are to cover a wide range of issues besides nuclear non-proliferation, including economic links and terrorism, of which India says it is a victim in the bitterly disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

Asked if Clinton's visit was conditional on India signing the global treaty banning nuclear tests, India foreign ministry spokesman Singh Jassal said: "I think it would be a mistake to link this to a specific issue or subject."-Reuters