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New bill may help Clinton to waive sanctions on India

Democratic congressman Frank Pallone will introduce a bill in the house of representatives to give United States President Bill Clinton powers to waive most of the economic sanctions that his administration had imposed on India in protest against its nuclear tests in May.

Pallone, who made a statement in Washington on Friday night, said the proposed legislation would be based on the proposals to be developed by a task force of the senate which is currently reviewing the United States's sanctions policy.

He said the legislation would make it possible for World Bank and other multilateral financial institutions to resume lending to India. The World Bank has put on hold consideration on credit proposals for India after its nuclear test.

He, however, said military and dual-use technology would not come under the presidential waiver.

Pallone, the founder and co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, also called on the house foreign operations sub-committee to address the sanctions issue. He said he was trying to build support among caucus members for removing the sanctions.

Earlier, he had indicated that he would try to tie sanctions relief legislation to specific Indian actions on nuclear proliferation. But in the light of the apparent support in the senate and the administration for giving the president broader powers of discretion to waive sanctions, Pallone was working to lead efforts in the house for a similar approach.

He said the bottomline was that the current sanctions did not have the desired effect in terms of non-proliferation, he added.

''I believe that we must keep working for non-proliferation, but the economic sanctions now in place were not the best way to achieve that goal,'' he said. ''I'm afraid that we have greatly limited our diplomatic options in terms of the non-proliferation in south Asia''.

UNI