AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
WASHINGTON: India's refusal to accept a provision barring it from conducting atomic tests in a civilian nuclear agreement with the United States is unlikely to scuttle the landmark deal, a US official said Monday.
“It shouldn't be an issue because the goalposts haven't been moved. That is the reality,” David Mulford, the US ambassador to India, told a forum in Washington.
He said that a bilateral agreement detailing the deal clinched on March 2 between US President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was still being worked out and that “there will have to be some sort of wording arrangements which have not been agreed.”
The United States had suggested a provision in the draft bilateral agreement that nuclear cooperation would be discontinued if New Delhi were to conduct a nuclear test.
But the Indian foreign ministry said last week that New Delhi “has already conveyed to the United States that such a provision has no place in the proposed bilateral agreement.”
New Delhi has refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which bans nuclear explosions but has announced a unilateral moratorium on atomic explosions after carrying out such tests in 1998.
An outline of the bilateral nuclear deal was adopted by Singh and Bush in July last year, in which the Indian prime minister pledged to maintain India's moratorium on nuclear weapons testing.
The deal would allow energy-starved India, which is not a signatory of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to gain access to long-denied civilian nuclear technology in return for placing a majority of its nuclear reactors under international inspection.
For the deal to be workable, the US Congress has to amend the US Atomic Energy Act, which currently prohibits nuclear sales to countries that are not NPT signatories.
The bilateral agreement also has to go through Congress, which is reportedly skeptical of the deal because New Delhi has refused to sign the NPT and has developed nuclear weapons.
“India made its own unilateral declaration confirming its policy there wasn't going to be any more testing,” Mulford said Monday, as he fielded questions on the deal at a forum organized by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
“That was what was agreed. There is no change in the goalposts, which unfortunately has somehow gotten into the media and become an issue,” Mulford said, apparently referring to a leak of the draft agreement in New Delhi.
He said the bilateral agreement was “a matter to be discussed,” adding that “it is question of time and dedicated effort by the skilled people who are involved on both sides.”
“As Congress comes to judge this situation, I think they will see that this is not an issue,” he said.
Several non-proliferation experts have criticized the deal with non-NPT member India, saying it will make it harder to enforce a tight set of rules against nuclear renegades Iran and North Korea.
