US looking at how to support India on nuclear deal

By Arun Kumar, IANS

Washington : The United States is looking at how it can support India on their “wonderful” civil nuclear deal that has run into some rough weather in New Delhi with opposition from the government’s Left supporters.


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President George W. Bush discussed the deal with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a call Monday morning, a White House spokesperson Dana Perino told reporters at Bush’s Crawford, Texas, home.

“I don’t have specific details as to what they both said, but what I would point out to you is that the president and Prime Minister Singh have been very supportive of it, as it is debated there in India,” she said.

“We’ll see if we can get you some more, in terms of how we can support Prime Minister Singh,” Perino said when asked to elaborate if the two leaders had talked about making changes to the deal and the way it’s been received in India and the US.

Bush had congratulated Manmohan Singh and the Indian people on the eve of the 60th anniversary of India’s independence Tuesday, she said. “The two leaders also discussed the civil nuclear cooperation initiative, climate change, the importance of a successful outcome in the Doha round, and regional security.”

“The civil nuclear agreement has many wonderful aspects to it, one of them being bringing India into the system of some monitoring and compliance,” Perino said, advancing the familiar argument offered to the strong US non-proliferation lobby in support of the deal.

“But, in addition to that, you have a country that has explosive population that very much needs access to clean-burning electricity, of which nuclear power certainly would be.

“And that would help raise economic levels across the country, help create jobs, as well as make sure that people aren’t suffering from the ill effects that you can get from traditional energy uses like coal, that can harm people’s health,” Perino said.

“And nuclear power, obviously, doesn’t have greenhouse gases, which can contribute to helping us reach the goals that the president has set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Bush, she recalled, had invited the major emitting countries, including India, to come to a conference on greenhouse gas emissions Sep 27-28. “And so that will be one of the topics, as well.”

US officials, including Washington’s chief interlocutor on the nuclear deal Nicholas Burns, have promised to help secure the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group’s (NSG) clearance for nuclear trade with India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

New Delhi is also required to conclude an India specific additional safeguards protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Once these two steps are completed, the 123 bilateral accord to implement the nuclear has to be approved again by the US Congress in an up or down vote.

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