Indian ambassador Naresh Chandra met US Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering on Thursday for talks which sources said were initiated by the American side. Chandra also had talks on Wednesday with deputy assistant secretary Gib Lanpher who is officiating for Assistant Secretary Rick Inderfurth, who is out of town.

The sources said the Indian envoy conveyed to the American side New Delhi's unilateral decision on adopting a nuclear test moratorium. The two sides also discussed their common desire to keep things from hotting up on the India-Pakistan front.

"It was a good beginning. No substantive issues were discussed. But it is a positive development and we promised to be in communication," a senior Indian official told The Indian Express.

US officials however told The Indian Expressthat New Delhi's offer to join the CTBT after negotiating certain provisions about which it has reservations was not acceptable. "Other countries did not seek to negotiate while signing it. India should sign it without conditions," one State Department official said.

The Indian ambassador also sought clarifications on the extent and scope of the sanctions that Washington is imposing on India. US officials are still writing the regulations to the 1994 sanctions law which has never been implemented before. US officials said Washington wanted to touch in the issue of the heightened rhetoric in the region and counselled a cooling off.

The resumed dialogue comes more than a week after India's cataclysmic test which convulsed the diplomatic world. US interlocutors in particular took the tests as a personal affront because they thought they had been in close personal touch with their Indian counterparts and had been assured that New Delhi would not take any precipitate steps in the nuclear field. Among those whotook it personally was Rick Inderfurth, who learnt of the development in the middle of a staff meeting in the South Asia bureau soon after the tests last Monday. CIA Director George Tenet had just come into his office and was having a cup of coffee when the news was broken to him by a subordinate.

National Security Adviser Samuel Berger also heard of it thereafter and walked into the President's Oval Office where Clinton was getting ready to leave for Europe for the G-8 summit. The President's jaw dropped and he asked only one question: "Why?" Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson and Under Secretary Tom Pickering were also said to have felt deceived.

But US officials say that sense of betrayal is now wearing off. "We are beginning to look it at in a more rational, constructive way," a State Department official said.