U.S. to announce nuclear exception for India

U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is expected to announce an arrangement today that will help India build its nuclear fuel repository.

Washington, July 27 : U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is expected to announce an arrangement today that will help India build its nuclear fuel repository.

Key American officials are describing the proposed announcement as an exception of sorts for India, in a last-ditch effort to seal the civilian nuclear deal between the two countries after more than two years of hard boiled negotiations, reports the New York Times.

Under the arrangement, Washington has reportedly agreed to go beyond the terms of the deal that the U.S. Congress approved, promising to help India build a nuclear fuel repository and find alternative sources of nuclear fuel in the event of an American cutoff, skirting some of the provisions of the law.

Until Congress approved the overall deal last year, federal law prohibited the U.S. from selling civilian nuclear technology to India till it signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The legislation passed by Congress allows the United States to sell both commercial nuclear technology and fuel to India, but would require a cutoff in nuclear assistance if India again tests a nuclear weapon. ndia's Parliament balked at the deal, with many politicians there complaining that the requirements infringed on India's sovereignty.

In February 2004, Bush, outlining new nuclear policies to prevent proliferation, had declared "enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."

According to the paper, he had then won the cooperation of allies for a temporary suspension of new facilities to make fuel, but the latter also expressed interest in uranium enrichment.

The problem is a delicate one for the administration, because this month American officials are working at the United Nations Security Council to win approval of harsher economic sanctions against Iran for trying to enrich uranium.

India is already a nuclear weapons state and has refused to sign the treaty; Iran, a signer of the treaty, does not yet have nuclear weapons.

But in an interview Thursday, R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, who negotiated the deal, said, "Iran in no way, shape or form would merit similar treatment because Iran is a nuclear outlaw state."

He noted that Iran hid its nuclear activities for many years from international inspectors, and that it still had not answered most of their questions about evidence that could suggest it was seeking weapons.

In India's case, however, while Washington perceived it for decades as a nuclear outlaw, and now, there is an eagerness on the part of the present administration to place relations with New Delhi on a new footing.

Indian-Americans and American nuclear equipment companies have come out strongly in support of the new initiatives, as they see a huge potential market for their reactors and expertise.

But critics like Massachusetts Democrat Edward J Markey have said that they will continue their campaign to defeat the deal and the proposed new arrangement.

"If you make an exception for India, we will be preaching from a barstool to the rest of the world," the paper quoted Markey, as saying.

According to Markey, the Bush Administration is guilty of double standards, or as he succinctly puts it "One set of rules for countries we like, another for countries we don't."

Robert J. Einhorn, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, believes India was put on par with countries that have signed the NPT during the initial phase of negotiations, and after the current round of talks in Washington, the U.S. has gone beyond that, and "given India something that we don't give to Russia and China."

Burns believes that "this agreement is so very much in our (U.S.'s) national interest."

"It will further our nonproliferation efforts globally" by gradually bringing India into the nuclear fold, he concludes.

ANI