Friday, July 7 2006 10:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Pakistan may well again raise the issue of an India type nuclear deal with US when Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri visits Washington next week, but he is more likely to hear a different tune the war on terror and restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

When she meets Kasuri on Monday, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is expected to focus more on how growing tension between Kabul and Islamabd is affecting the global war on terror and how further democratisation of Pakistan can put it firmly on what President Pervez Musharraf calls the road to 'enlightened moderation.'

In tune with President George Bush's famous phrase in Islamabad last March that

"Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories", she may well remind Kasuri, as she did during her recent trip to Islamabad that the nuclear deal with India resulted from 'a special circumstance.'

And Pakistan's energy needs could well be met by other means like development of its coal reserves with US help as promised by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. But on the nuclear issue, the Americans are not expected to be any more receptive especially after offering it a $5.1 billion arms package, including 36 new F-16 fighter planes.

The Kasuri visit is taking place in the backdrop of a widening gulf between Kabul and Islamabad on the question of flushing out terrorists, especially the Taliban, operating from the tribal belt of North Waziristan and parts of Baluchistan.

He is thus expected to address a major US concern that in the face of increased terrorist activities, Kabul and Islamabad keep blaming each other instead of working together to curb terrorism. He would also try to remove misperceptions about Islamabad's new strategy to tackle extremism in the tribal belt through dialogue.

Washington would like to strengthen the trilateral mechanism of US, Afghanistan and Pakistan, aimed at eliminating the threat from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, at both tactical and strategic levels to make more effective.

Kasuri's interlocutors are also likely to remind him about Washington's expectation that starting with what Musharraf calls an 'enlightened and moderate Pakistan', Islamabad is finally going to move further on the road to democracy with free and fair elections in 2007.

While Afghanistan will be the primary focus, issues like US-Pakistan strategic dialogue and the composite dialogue process with India are expected to figure on Kasuri's agenda.

Kasuri will also meet with the National Security Advisor Steve Hadley and the chairmen of two key panels of US Congress, Richard Lugar and Henry Hyde, which are due to review the $5.1 billion arms package for Pakistan with the lower house committee taking it up on July 13.

The Congress has only until July 27, or 30 days after it was notified by the Pentagon, to reject the arms package. But it is widely expected that the deal would be approved as the administration has kept Congress members in the picture since March 2005 when US decided to sell F-16s to Pakistan.

Kasuri winds up his visit to Washington with a lecture on the war on terror, the Indian nuclear deal and US-Pakistani relations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on July 11.