*EPF203 03/07/00
Administration Officials Brief on Upcoming Clinton South Asia Trip
(Explain why Pakistan added to India/Bangladesh trip) (600)
By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent

Washington -- President Clinton has decided to stop in Pakistan at the conclusion of his trip to India and Bangladesh later this month because it is important for the United States and the world that he engage with Pakistan at this time, two senior administration officials told reporters at a special White House briefing March 7.

The trip takes place the week of March 20.

"The important national interests we have at stake in Pakistan today," one official said, include "avoiding the threat of a conflict in South Asia; promoting the return of democracy to Pakistan; fighting terrorism; preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and creating an environment of regional peace and security."

The visit, he said, is not meant to mean U.S. approval of the military government nor to mediate the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

"Our decision to travel to Pakistan is not an endorsement" of the military government "but a statement of continuing engagement with Pakistan," and its people, he said.

Clinton, he added, "is convinced this is the right decision that best represents the interests of the American people."

In addition, not to stop in Pakistan while in the area would be an affront to the people of Pakistan, he said.

Since no one can predict when the next flare-up between India and Pakistan will occur, the President has a responsibility to the United States and to the world to keep the lines of communication with both countries open, the officials said.

"The president believes it is crucial that he carry a message of restraint and dialogue to both capitals on this trip. He also wants to assure that we have lines of communication that may be necessary and useful in a crisis," one official said.

Clinton will spend several hours in Islamabad at the end of his visit, but does not plan to stay overnight. Details of how that time will be spent are just beginning to be worked on, they said, but would include talks between Clinton and General Pervez Musharraf, the military leader of Pakistan, who ousted President Nawaz Sharif in a coup October 12, 1999.

High on Clinton's agenda for those talks, the officials said, would be the subjects of democracy, terrorism and nonproliferation.

The "primary focus of the trip" will be India, where Clinton will visit five cities in five days, one of the officials pointed out.

Clinton and India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke by phone March 7 and the conversation was mostly about the visit to India, he said. Vajpayee's reaction to Clinton's stop in Pakistan was that he understood this was Clinton's call to make, and he just wanted to focus on being a superlative host for the Indian part of the trip, the official said.

National Security Advisor Sandy Berger spoke by phone March 7 with Pakistan's Musharraf, the officials said.

Clinton will be the first president in 22 years to visit India, the first ever to visit Bangladesh and the first to visit Pakistan in some 30 years.

One of the officials noted that Bangladesh had ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty March 7, the first South Asian nation to do so, and "a nice thing to have done before we arrive there," he said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)
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