US to work with India to see nuclear deal to fruition

WASHINGTON: The United States has said it would work with New Delhi to hopefully see their civil nuclear deal to fruition, while refraining from any comment that may further muddy the political waters in India.

"We don't have any specific comments on discussions within India about the agreement. This is a determination for the Indians to make. We're going to be working with them to hopefully see it to fruition," state department spokesman Gonzalo R. Gallegos said on Monday.

Asked to clarify Washington's stand in the event of India testing a nuclear weapon, he merely referred to the on record comments made by regular department spokesman Sean McCormack saying, "I don't really have anything different or additional to add to that."

"And I think that obviously this is an important agreement that we believe will help India reduce its energy shortfall and will allow Indians to gain access to advanced technologies that will improve their daily lives. So we're working towards that end, coordinating with the Indians, coordinating with our Congress, and we hope to move forward on that," Gallegos said.

"I'll refer you back to Sean's comments on that. I know that he went on the record with that. I know that he's been standing by those comments, and I'll just have to refer you to them," he said when asked about what options the US president has under the implementing 123 agreement in the event of a nuclear test.

McCormack himself had tacitly conceded last week that as a sovereign nation India has the right to conduct or not conduct a test but said Washington does not encourage any states to test atomic weapons.

"The whole issue is India is sovereign, but we're not encouraging any states to test at this point," he said without asserting as he had in comments made to a couple of reporters that a test by New Delhi would lead to scrapping of the deal.

McCormack's reported blunt assertion that a test by India would lead to scrapping of the deal does not find a mention in the state department transcript for the day as it was made in comments after the regular briefing.

Meanwhile, India's ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen has warned that if the nuclear deal begins to unravel because of opposition at home it would impact heavily on India's credibility and have grave implications for US-India relations in the future.

The Hyde act that approved the deal in principle last December cannot be renegotiated as it has already been signed into law by US President George Bush, he told India Abroad, an ethnic weekly.

It would be a pity if the agreement is not operationalised before the end of the Bush administration's tenure, because as Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh had said there has not been, and unlikely to be in the near future, a president as friendly and supportive of India as Bush, Sen said.

"If you really look at it (the 123 Agreement), every single (concern) has been met," particularly with regard to reprocessing and assurances of fuel supplies to India's reactors even in the hypothetical case of India conducting a nuclear test, even though there has been no mention of 'testing' in the text," he was quoted as saying.

There seems "to be this gap between perception and reality," Sen said with the critics of the deal apparently not comprehending "the enormity of this change. That a country (the United States), which had taken the lead in setting up a regime (the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) where India was targeted, is taking the lead again to exempt India."