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India, Pak to be part of US security strategy, says Clinton

United States President Bill Clinton has listed India and Pakistan among the countries which figure in the United States's strategy for security and international peace.

''In the months ahead, I will pursue our security strategy with old allies in Asia and Europe and new partners from Africa to India and Pakistan -- from South America to China, and from Belfast to Korea to the West Asia, America will continue to stand with those who stand for peace,'' the president said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night in Washington DC.

Shaken by scandal, Clinton, in his 72-minute address, watched probably by the largest television audience of his life, sought to reassert his leadership by highlighting his domestic agenda. Foreign policy issues, including his tiff with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and the Asian monetary crisis figured only in passing. There was no reference to his alleged affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone promptly welcomed the president's new approach to South Asia, and said he was encouraged that Clinton had cited India and Pakistan as ''important partners'' of the United States and in its efforts to build security and international peace.

The president's reference, though in passing to the two South Asian rivals in the context of his country's security strategy, according to experts, is in keeping with his earlier assertion to impart a place of prominence to India and Pakistan in US foreign policy.

Pallone, founder and co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, said the mention of New Delhi and Islamabad in the State of the Union address was an indication of ''increased focus on the region in the Clinton administration.''

''In past years, when presidents have outlined their key foreign policy objectives, South Asia has rarely figured in the discussion, so, I am glad that the president (Clinton) addressed the region in his speech last night."

Clinton hoped that ''this year will be marked by increased US engagement with the region." He also hoped that 1998 would witness a continuation of the peace process that India had initiated with Pakistan last year. As India and Pakistan worked to resolve their differences, he hoped their efforts would become model for other nations, striving for regional co-operation.

Clinton also asked Congress to join him in pursuing an ambitious agenda to reduce the serious threat of weapons of mass destruction.

"This year, four decades after it was first proposed by President Eisenhower, a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is within our reach. By ending nuclear testing, we can help to prevent the development of new and more dangerous weapons and make it more difficult for non-nuclear states to build them,'' he added.

''Together, we also must confront new hazards: chemical and biological weapons, which could be used against the US by outlaw States, terrorists, and organised criminals,'' Clinton said.

He said Saddam Hussein had spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons -- and the missiles to deliver them.

He said ''the United Nations's weapons inspectors have done a remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the Gulf War itself. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.''

''I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein: You cannot defy the will of the world. You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again,'' Clinton remarked.

''Last year, the (US) senate ratified the chemical weapons convention to protect our soldiers and citizens from poison gas,'' he said, adding, ''Now we must act to prevent the use of disease as a weapon of war and terror. The biological weapons convention has been in effect for 23 years. The rules are good but the enforcement weak -- and we must strengthen it with a new international inspection system to detect and deter cheating."

He wanted America to stand up for its interests and stand against the poisoned appeals of hands.

Within days, he said he would ask the senate for its advice and consent to make Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic the newest members of NATO for 50 years. NATO, he said, had contained Communism and kept America and Europe secure.

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