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Clinton Cancels Plan To Visit India And Pakistan
06:55 p.m Sep 30, 1998 Eastern
By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton has canceled plans to visit India and Pakistan this year because of their tit-for-tat nuclear tests and U.S. officials said Wednesday he would instead travel to South Korea and Japan.
Clinton put his scheduled visit to South Asia in November on hold after India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests last May, sparking world outcry and prompting Washington to impose economic sanctions on the two long-time adversaries.
White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters Clinton had ultimately decided not to travel there this year but still wanted to make the trip during his presidency and other U.S. officials said that he hoped to do so next year.
The spokesman declined to say whether Clinton would make other stops when he travels to Malaysia for the Nov. 17-18 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, but U.S. officials who asked not to be named said that he would visit South Korea and Japan instead.
The officials said Clinton decided not to make the South Asia visit, including a stop in neighboring Bangladesh, this year because of limited progress in U.S. talks with both India and Pakistan on their nuclear programs and security issues.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has led talks with the two countries aimed at persuading them not to deploy nuclear-tipped missiles and at strengthening their controls on the export of nuclear and other technologies.
The talks also aimed to strengthen the countries' bilateral dialogue on such issues as Kashmir, the disputed northern province that has been the flashpoint of two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.
''We had good talks with both India and Pakistan ... We made some progress on the issues that obviously prompted this decision: nuclear testing and export controls,'' McCurry told reporters at his daily briefing.
''Until more progress is achieved we are not going to be able to lift the sanctions that are in place and we are not in a position to strengthen the kind of bilateral ties with both governments which we would naturally want,'' he added.
Washington was heartened by last week's announcement by both India and Pakistan that they were prepared to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a global nuclear test ban treaty, next year.
But U.S. officials said that they need more time to make headway on other issues, particularly on persuading the two countries to tighten their internal controls on the export of weapons technology to other countries.
''If they are going to have these kinds of weapons they have got to have these kinds of export controls,'' said one official. ''We want them to strengthen their indigenous regimes.''
Neither country is a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an international agreement on controlling the spread of missiles and related technology.
Clinton's planned trip to India and Pakistan, postponed once because of the Indian elections earlier this year, was built around the president's attendance at the APEC summit in Malaysia.
U.S. officials said that he would make stops in Japan and South Korea instead. ''We have important issues to discuss with both allies,'' said one official explaining why the two countries were added to Clinton's itinerary.
The officials said the visits would help ease displeasure in Japan and South Korea over the fact that Clinton made a nine-day visit to China this summer without stopping in either country.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited |
