COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT SEEKS TO EASE DRUG FRICTION WITH U.S.

WASHINGTON - Colombian President Andres Pastrana says he wants to
improve relations with the United States by eliminating drug
trafficking as a source of tensions between the two countries.

"We need to `denarcoticize' our relations," he said upon arriving
yesterday in Washington for a three-day state visit.

President Clinton was meeting with Pastrana today at the White House.
It is the first state visit by a Colombian president in 23 years.

The U.S. government refused to deal with Pastrana's predecessor,
Ernesto Samper, because of allegations that he accepted campaign
funding from cocaine lords.

Talks with Clinton administration officials will focus on Colombia's
peace process, efforts to combat drug trafficking, protection of human
rights and economic development, State Department spokesman James Rubin said.

The Harvard-educated Pastrana, 44, who was inaugurated in August, has
made overtures of peace with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia.

Pastrana has agreed to a key demand by the rebels, to demilitarize
large tracts of Colombia's interior.

Pastrana recently confirmed that troops have begun pulling out of five
cattle-ranching and cocaine-producing towns. They will be gone by Nov.
7, ceding a territory the size of West Virginia to the guerrillas they
have been fighting for nearly four decades.

The U.S. Congress last week voted for a $2.6 billion boost in funding
to repress the drug traffic from South America, including the purchase
of six Blackhawk helicopters for the Colombian police.

This doubles U.S. anti-drug assistance to Colombia to $280 million in
fiscal 1999, making Colombia the third-largest recipient of overall
U.S. economic aid in the world after Israel and Egypt, U.S. officials
said.

Republicans added a clause to the legislation stipulating that
anti-drug aid would be cut off if Pastrana's peace plan interferes
with U.S.-funded drug-eradication programs, including the chemical
fumigation of coca and poppy plantations.

Colombian guerrillas "tax" narcotics production in return for
protecting drug crops.

Information from The Los Angeles Times and
Reuters is included in this report.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady