Washington says only those countries which conducted nuclear tests before 1968 could be considered to have official nuclear status. No late entrants. The Clinton administration made known its strictly legal interpretation at a briefing yesterday following reports that New Delhi had openly and formally declared itself a nuclear power. Under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the nuclear club has been frozen at five for all time to come with countries which had detonated nuclear devices before 1968, officials said.The United States, Russia (then Soviet Union), Britain, France and China constitute the five countries.

For India to be considered a part of the nuclear club would require an amendment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, State Department spokesman James Rubin said on Friday. ``It would be quite an enterprise... But I am notsuggesting we would even consider it,'' Rubin added.

``There cannot be a P-6th,'' other analysts said, referring to the Permanent Five who constitute the `recognised' nuclear weapons states.Indian officials scoffed at the legal hairsplitting and what they said was artificial construct. ``It's like insisting someone still a virgin because the sex is pre-marital. It flies in the face of evidence. And changing mores,'' one official joked.

Rubin also trashed New Delhi's claim for a Security Council seat on the basis of its nuclear test and weaponisation capability, saying Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ``did not regard that as very likely, given the current circumstances.'' Japan and Germany, which unlike India are members in good standing of the Non Proliferation Treaty, would come first, he suggested.

But despite the harsh words from here, and what is seen from here as Indian belligerence in New Delhi, matters appear to be cooling somewhat as Washington now looks to recast its relationship withIndia. Policy makers are still awaiting the outcome of the Talbott mission to Pakistan and President Clinton's return from Birmingham, before getting down to business.

Clinton himself has suggested at the G-8 meeting that India should be condemned for its tests, but not isolated from the international community. Despite this apparent softening, officials say there is simply no decision yet on whether he will make his scheduled November trip to the region although there is a fierce debate about it.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott added his bit to it by saying in a CNBC interview that Clinton should ``probably'' cancel his visit to India. But officials say everything depends on what happens now in Pakistan and how things play out over the next few weeks.

In fact, the President's foreign policy plate is suddenly full.

A cartoon in the Times Union yesterday showed journalists shooting questions on India, the Middle East and China at Clinton. The President is saying ``Doesn't anyone want to ask meabout Monica Lewinsky?'' Overnight, foreign policy is the hot-button issue.

Meanwhile, there is still a great deal of uncertainty about the issue of sanctions with opinion divided over whether it will hurt India or not. There have been a raft of articles in the US media over the last two days arguing that sanctions can affect US business much more than it will hurt India.Rubin himself warned that sanctions will ``clearly have a profound impact on a number of US businesses that have been operating there.''

Although the volume of trade between India and US is modest compared to Washington's business with other countries, the uncertainty in South Korea, Thailand and now Indonesia was turning off US investors. Many were beginning to see India as an option. ``A nationalist and risky India projects the opposite image. Foreign investors will see India as a less safe bet - a sad outcome, especially given that Pacific Asia's economic crises might have led some to look more favorably on investment in India,''George Segal, Director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, writes in the International Herald Tribune.

There is also some doubts about the efficacy of sanctions. The Journal of Commerce newspaper reported in a lead story on Friday that even as sanctions came into force, the US commerce department has allowed an American firm to ship design software to Bharat Dynamics, an Indian company proliferation hawks here say is involved in the N American firm to ship design software to Bharat Dynamics, an Indian company.