WASHINGTON (CNN) -- India and Pakistan braced Wednesday for a visit from key U.S. security officials empowered with lifting monetary controls and boosting relations with the two south Asian nations.

Ahead of Wednesday's departure, Karl Inderfurth, the assistant secretary for South Asian Affairs, urged both countries to rely less on weaponry for their strategic defense requirements.

Inderfurth also stressed U.S. demands for the expulsion of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. The Saudi millionaire is being sheltered in Afghanistan and his removal for trial will be on the agenda for talks with Pakistan which has close ties with Afghanistan's Taliban government.

He said Afghanistan would have to rid itself of bin Laden and the narcotics traffickers operating in the country before it could return to a working relationship with the rest of the world.

"The United States wants bin Laden expelled from Afghanistan to a place where he can be brought to justice for the criminal acts he has committed," Inderfurth said.

Bin Laden has been indicted by a U.S. court in connection with the August bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Taliban officials in Afghanistan have refused to hand over bin Laden.

Inderfurth will leave Wednesday with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston for a tour that will include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

The U.S. delegates are expected to discuss strategic defense reviews for India and Pakistan during the visits. The two countries carried out nuclear tests last May sparking uproar from the international community.

"Both countries ... are in the process of defining their strategic requirements and defense posture for the future," said Inderfurth.

"We are hopeful that they will define those requirements in a way that are minimum but meet their needs," he said.

The United States wants India and Pakistan to sign an international test ban treaty, issue a formal moratorium on the production of fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons and adopt restraints on nuclear-capable missiles and aircraft.

India has said it plans to maintain a "minimum deterrence" and U.S. officials will be pressing New Delhi and Islamabad both to better define what kinds of forces they require to meet their security needs.

But in his comments Tuesday, Inderfurth gave no indication the Clinton administration was prepared to drop its objections to World Bank funding for India.

He said any movement in that area depended on further Indian moves to allay international security concerns, but declined to spell out exactly what those steps might be.

The United States and other world powers blocked most international financial institution lending to India and Pakistan after the two South Asian states triggered a regional arms race with their nuclear tests.

Since then, restrictions on arch rival Pakistan have been eased, prompting Indian complaints of unfair treatment.

Some $1.7 billion in loans for India is awaiting action by the World Bank, according to a bank spokesman.

Inderfurth said that when the United States decided in December to resume support for international lending to Pakistan, it was for the good reason that the country looked close to debt default.

"It was our view then and it is our view now that India's economy is stronger, not in the economic dire straits that Pakistan was," he said.

"We did not see (allowing World Bank loans) as favoring one side or the other, or rewarding one side over the other" but as taking what many countries, including India, saw as "necessary steps" to prevent Pakistan's economic collapse, he said.

He stressed that the World Bank lending came in conjunction with an International Monetary Fund recovery package that contained conditions aimed at reforming Pakistan's economy.

As for the possibility of unblocking World Bank loans to India, Inderfurth said: "As we make further progress in reconciling our security concerns, we hope that we can take further steps ... to respond to the steps taken."

Although World Bank funding for the bulk of Indian projects has been held up, some $328 million in loans for "basic human needs" or humanitarian projects has been approved since last June when the fiscal year began.

He also stressed the importance of China's role in trying to ensure stability in South Asia and said the United States had urged Beijing to resume its dialogue at a high level with India. New Delhi considers China a major security threat.

On Tuesday, India's Republic Day celebrations were marred by violence.

At least 24 villagers were killed and 13 were wounded in the crime-ridden eastern Indian state of Bihar in an overnight attack by suspected members of an upper-caste private army.

In the northeastern state of Assam, separatist guerrillas blew up a crude oil pipeline and killed two paramilitary soldiers Tuesday, police said.

Kashmir's main city marked Republic Day, a celebration of India's independence from Britain in 1947, with a strike after separatists there called for shops and businesses to close.

President K.R. Narayanan made an impassioned plea for religious tolerance in his national address from New Delhi. He was referring to a spate of attacks on Christian churches and prayer halls in the western state of Gujarat.

But his speech had been written before the grisly weekend lynching of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young boys.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.