NEW YORK, Nov 21: A State department official said here on Tuesday that the Bush administration would continue to press India and Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty despite the fact it has its own reservations about the treaty.

Briefing correspondents in New York, State Department’s deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said: “We would find other ways to press both countries to refrain from further tests.”

The US imposed sanctions against India and Pakistan in 1998 following nuclear tests by both countries, as mandated by the US law.

However, since Pakistan and India joined the American coalition against Taliban who harboured Osama bin laden and his Al-Qaeda network accused of carrying out the Sept 11 attacks on the American landmarks, the Bush administration has lifted most of the sanctions against both countries.

Unlike the Clinton administration which had made it a bulwark of its policy in South Asia and pushed both countries to sign the treaty despite the fact that the US Senate failed to ratify the test ban treaty signed by President Clinton, the Bush administration believes that bilateral talks separately with the two countries could achieve this objective.

Mr Reeker who also served under the Clinton administration at the State Department reiterated that the relationship between India and the United States had taken a new dimension as had America’s relationship with Pakistan.

“The old thinking of post-cold war era is gone,” he said adding the new relationship would be built on new realities.