Lahore, hometown of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was decorated at State expense for the Saudi Prince who arrived on Sunday with a large entourage.

The Prince's visit comes at a crucial time for Pakistan as the country is seen to be edging towards an economic crisis caused by a breakdown in talks between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pakistan over the resumption of a loan programme.

The loan programme was discontinued after sanctions were imposed against Pakistan by G-8 countries in retaliation to Pakistan's decision to explode nuclear devices in May.

While Abdullah has not openly announced what his country can offer to Pakistan to ease its financial crunch, Pakistan is hoping that Saudi would help.

In a lastminute switch, Pakistan Government shifted the Saudi Prince's visit to Lahore instead of the Capital due to perceived security threat. Islamabad is home to a small Arab community, many of whom are veterans of the Afghan war. The Pakistan government is understood to have received some disturbing signals over the visit of the Saudi Prince and hence has also made strict security arrangements.

On Monday, in his formal discussions with the Pakistan Prime Minister, Saudi Prince Abdullah reiterated his country's stand over the Kashmir issue and said that Saudi Arabia supported Pakistan in the matter.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also decided to enlarge their economic and commercial cooperation. Sharif is personally accompanying the Saudi Prince in his official engagements, giving a signal of the importance Pakistan attaches to the Saudi visit.

Saudi Arabia had not announce any financial assistance to Pakistan when a high-level team headed by Shahbaz Sharif, brother of Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister of Punjab,visited the kingdom in June to seek help. Instead, the Saudi government had promised commodity support.

Pak ready to sign CTBT unconditionally: Aziz

Pakistan has expressed willingness to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaties even before the United States lifts sanctions against it.

Pakistan has "no objection" to the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) and putting a ban on transfer of nuclear technology, the four conditions laid down by the US for lifting of sanctions, Foreign Minister Sartaz Aziz said in an interview to The Nation daily published today.

Asserting that Pakistan has got nuclear deterrent, he, however, said an Indian adventurism was not ruled out as ``people like Advani are quite strong in the BJP (Government) and they can disturb regional peace.''

``Advani even thinks that it is right time to launch an attack on Pakistan, which at present was facing law and order and economiccrises,'' he alleged.

He said Indian Prime Minister AB Vajpayee did not want war with Pakistan but his Home Minister had adopted a hard-line policy over Kashmir.

May 28 nuclear tests by Pakistan have restored the balance of power in South Asia and even nuclear scientists had advised the Government that there was no harm in signing the CTBT and FMCT at this stage as ``we have enough enriched nuclear material to maintain the power equilibrium,'' he said.

Pakistani Foreign Minister also hinted that Pakistan may abide by the American conditionalities even before the lifting of the economic sanctions, saying that the Prime Minister had already indicated at signing of the CTBT if economic sanctions on Pakistan were lifted, but, ``United States wanted us to sign first and then lift the economic sanctions''.

Aziz's statement is quite significant in the sense that only yesterday it was confirmed that Prime Minister Sharif has been invited for an official meeting with US President Bill Clinton in the first weekof December at Washington.

Incidentally, during his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month Sharif had declared that Pakistan would be ready to sign the CTBT by September 1999 if the economic sanctions were lifted by then, but apparently the mounting economic crises and refusal of multilateral agencies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to offer any bail-out package has forced the country to alter its earlier stand.

Pakistan at present is in the grip of its worst-ever economic crises with its foreign exchange reserve plummeting to barely US $ 500 million and debt arrears in the current financial year mounting to $ 1.4 billion.

He rejected Indian attempts to enhance trade relations with Pakistan saying, ``India wanted to enhance the trade activities between the two countries so as to give an impression of normal relations between the two countries to fool the world.''

He said Pakistan wanted to neutralise the dangers of war by keeping it engaged in dialogue in anobvious reference to the just resumed bilateral dialogue process.

He confirmed the Pakistani involvement in militancy in Kashmir, as he was quoted as saying, ``besides freedom movement we are organising the Kashmir Mujahideen groups politically so that the discouraging situation could not emerge as we have witnessed in Afghanistan after a successful jehad (holy war)''.