WASHINGTON, March 28: In 1997, the Clinton administration advised Pakistan not to isolate itself in the region when Pakistani leaders complained that Iran was resisting their efforts to arrange a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright conveyed this message to the then foreign minister, Gohar Ayub Khan, when he discussed the issue with her. "During my 1997 visit, Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan told me that Pakistan favoured a negotiated settlement to the civil war in Afghanistan, but blamed Iran for stirring up trouble by supplying arms to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance," Ms Albright told a US commission probing the causes of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

She told Mr Ayub: "It concerns the United States that Pakistan is in danger of being isolated because of its support for the Taliban, which is seen as authoritarian at best, and preposterous at worst, by the rest of the world."

"I said, the Taliban may have imposed law and order, but their rules are excessive. The Taliban can never control the whole country, so all groups must be involved in a solution."

During the hearing there also emerged a difference of opinion between the officials of the Clinton and Bush administrations in their approach towards the Musharraf government.

While both the groups regarded President Musharraf as Washington's "indispensable ally", the Clinton administration officials also advised him to strengthen democracy if he wants to be successful.

"President Musharraf of Pakistan remains a courageous and indispensable ally who has become the target of assassins for the help he has given us," said CIA Director George Tenet.

Ms Albright also acknowledged that President Musharraf has put his own life at risk to oppose pro-al-Qaeda elements within Pakistan. If he does not succeed, it may be a long time before another Muslim leader does the same.

But she warned: "Musharraf will not succeed in the long run, however, if he fails to support a process for strengthening democratic institutions and restoring democratic rule." The US- Pakistani relationship, she said, had become among the most important as well as the most complex on earth."

Ms Albright also explained how former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif helped in the capture of Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani wanted in America for killing two CIA employees outside the agency's headquarters in January, 1993.

Earlier in the year (1997), I had personally requested the assistance of Mr Sharif in arranging for the return to American jurisdiction of Mir Aimal Kansi. He agreed, but asked that word of his government's cooperation in the arrest and transfer not become public," she said.

"Unfortunately, the news leaked almost as soon as Kansi reached American soil, embarrassing Mr. Sharif and triggering anti-American demonstrations." In an earlier statement, Ms Albright's successor Colin Powell explained how the Bush administration convinced the Musharraf government to join the US- led war against terrorism.