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Clinton-Sharief talks in Washington may get Pak financial aid

The proposed meeting between US President Bill Clinton and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief during the latter's ''official working visit'' in Washington in early December is expected to result in American financial assistance to Pakistan which currently faces an acute economic crisis.

The initiative for the meeting was taken by Clinton, who invited Sharief to visit the US on an official visit.

Assistant secretary of state for South Asia Karl Inderfurth who confirmed the invitation at a Pakistani community meeting said Pakistan's serious economic crisis and the fight against terrorism would be some of the main topics to be discussed between Clinton and Sharief.

He hoped the US president will have congressional authority to waive sanctions and extend economic assistance to Pakistan. These sanctions were slapped both on Pakistan and India after their nuclear tests in May last.

Inderfurth, however, said, ''We want to keep expectations low.''

According to Pakistani embassy, the visit will take place some time in the first half of December. ''Everything that is of concern to the two countries, including bilateral relations, non-proliferation, regional security in the context of current round of India-Pakistan official-level talks, will be discussed,'' they say.

This will be Sharief's first official visit to the United States, though he had met Clinton twice at the time of the United Nations General Assembly sessions. His last meeting with the US president was last month in New York where both of them had come to attend the UNGA.

Benazir Bhutto was the last Pakistani prime minister to have come here on an official visit in June 1989 and April 1995.

President Clinton, himself was to visit South Asia, including India and Pakistan, next month but he put off his travel plans apparently for lack of sufficient progress in the disarmament talks that the u s has been having with the two countries for past four months. These talks began after the May nuclear tests.

UNI

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