An IMF team is already stationed here since the last few days to take stock of the Pakistani economy and is ready to begin negotiations for resuming suspended loans.

Everything now hinges on the Sharif-Clinton meeting as well as Pakistan's stand on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the IMF officials have reportedly told senior officials in the Pakistani bureaucracy.

The IMF team has shown willingness to accept structural reforms package presented by the Pakistani authorities in return for the loan resumption, the media reported here quoting government sources.

``It's a pure political decision now,'' the source was quoted by the Nation daily. The IMF had earlier suspended an already sanctionedsoft loan of 1.56 billion dollars to Pakistan after Washington imposed sanctions following Islamabad's nuclear tests in May, barely a fortnight after India's tests.

US authorities since then has been pressing for a ban on further nuclear tests and are pressurising Pakistanis to sign and ratify the CTBT to ensure non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Already four rounds of negotiations have been held between US and Pakistani authorities in the post nuclear blast period and the issues are expected to figure in the Clinton-Sharif meeting later this week.

The Sharif government is, however, under pressure from fundamentalist Islamic parties not to sign the treaty as they claim that it will snatch away the status of Pakistan being the only Muslim nuclear power country in the world.

The opposition also alleged that the Sharif regime had okayed some ``secret deal'' with the Americans on the issue and boycotted the joint session of the parliament to discuss CTBT as a result of which the house failed to evolvea consensus.

In a volte face, the Sharif regime suddenly admitted that sanctions were hurting Pakistan with foreign exchange reserves hitting precarious levels and trade growth falling steeply.

Pakistan has a foreign exchange reserve of only US $700 million and is estimated to require US $4.5 billion to get through the current financial year up to June 1999 without defaulting debt repayments.