Clinton To Visit India And Bangladesh

The White House Monday announced that President Clinton will visit India and Bangladesh later this winter but has not decided if he will visit Pakistan.

National Security Council spokesman David Leavy, asked if Clinton might add Pakistan to the itinerary of the March trip, said, "No decisions have been made about other stops."

"We want to see significant movement on terrorism, on nonproliferation and the restoration of democracy" in Pakistan, Leavy said.

Clinton will be the first President ever to visit Bangladesh and the first to visit India since Jimmy Cater did 22 years ago.

"I'm going (to India) because it's the biggest democracy in the world and I think we haven't been working with them enough," Clinton said. "We have an enormous common interest in shaping the future with them."

India's Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement: ``The visit of the U.S. president is expected to pave the way for a qualitatively new and closer relationship between the two democracies.''

Clinton had been planning to visit both India and Pakistan earlier but reversed course after both countries set off nuclear explosions in 1998.

The nuclear tests stoked long-standing tensions between India and Pakistan, which dispute a portion of their border and have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Indian forces skirmished with pro-Pakistan forces in the disputed Kashmir region this summer in clashes that may have killed as many as 1,250 people.

Since the nuclear tests, India and the U.S. have held high-level security talks on at least ten occasions.

Planning for a presidential trip resumed last year but was derailed when Pakistan's elected government was ousted in October by a military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf.

Since then, deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, hijacking and terrorism. Earlier this week, Pakistan's Supreme Court adjourned a constitutional challenge to the coup until March 1.

Clinton's South Asia trip is expected to last about a week.