Bill to soften curbs delayed

WASHINGTON, June 30: Efforts to quickly pass legislation to soften the American sanctions on India and Pakistan have run into unexpected del...

WASHINGTON, June 30: Efforts to quickly pass legislation to soften the American sanctions on India and Pakistan have run into unexpected delay with a Democratic Senator moving a bill to lessen the impact of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Senator Richard Lugar, Congressman Philip Crane (both Republican) and the latter’s House colleague Lee Hamilton (Democratic) had hoped for quick passage of the bills moved by them, but in a surprise move, Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd also brought a bill to soften the impact of sanctions on Iran and Libya.

This has led to many Senators saying that they wanted time to consider the whole thing, and thus both the Dodd Bill and the Lugar-Crane-Hamilton Bill have been held up. The sponsors of the bills on India and Pakistan are still hopeful that the Congress will take up the move to soften the Glenn Amendment, under which sanctions had been imposed on the two countries after their nuclear tests last month. The move to soften the sanctions has strong support of the Clintonadministration.

Earlier in the week, the Journal of Commerce reported that two key officials Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Under-Secretary of Commerce Stuart Eizenstat met a bipartisan group of ten Senators to discuss sanctions reform with particular emphasis on the India-Pakistan sanctions.

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“We introduced the Sanctions Bill,” Senator Lugar said at the meeting, “because we believe unilateral economic sanctions, as a tool of foreign policy, rarely achieve their goals, frequently harm the United States more than the target country, and almost always limit our ability to resolve foreign policy challenges.” Lugar also pointed out that the amendment was prospective and would not affect existing sanctions.

The Journal of Commerce said that the administration was seeking changes in the Lugar Bill and a generalised Presidential waiver authority of the kind that would reach back and collar the Burton Iran-Libya laws.

A Senate aide said about the Dodd bill, “It is a sensible bill but it isgoing to go back and affect existing sanctions that are on the books. It has no chance of getting passed.”