20000401

Clinton accuses

Republicans of

sabotaging

S Asian trip

NEW YORK: President Bill Clinton said the Republican-controlled Congress took way "all leverage" he had in dealing with India and Pakistan on nuclear issues during his trip to the region last week.

Both countries have refused to reverse their nuclear weapons programmes, and Pakistan's leadership gave Clinton no timetable for the return of democracy in the country.

Clinton told a Democratic audience in Manhattan that he was angered by Republican criticism that he didn't "get anything" for his trip.

Such criticism ignores a critical fact, he said: "I lost all leverage I had when the Republican Senate defeated the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."

"That is real gall, man," Clinton said to applause. "That requires a lot of moxie, you know"?

Laughing, Clinton continued: "One of their great strengths, by the way, is they have no guilt and no shame. I mean, they'll say anything."

Republican Sen Sam Brownback, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, has called Clinton's trip " a bust."

House Republican Whip Tom DeLay has also said Clinton has little to show for his week of diplomacy in South Asia.

Last year, Clinton lost a bitter, party-line vote for ratification of the test ban treaty. He had campaigned hard for the treaty, saying it was a vital gesture to countries with nuclear aspirations. The United States has voluntarily stopped the kind of testing covered by the treaty.ÑAPP