Don’t let Bill hurt ties, Rice tells Hill

The recent amendment in the Senate version of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation Bill seeking a co-operative threat reduction programme with India is not binding on the Bush Administration...

The recent amendment in the Senate version of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation Bill seeking a co-operative threat reduction programme with India is not binding on the Bush Administration which has made it clear to the relevant committees of both chambers in the US Congress that it cannot move on any such agreement without prior discussions with India.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has, in fact, written a detailed letter to the heads of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee listing many of India’s concerns. She has clearly stated that this, along with the prohibition on selling enrichment and reprocessing technology, could be seen as additional commitments that could “reopen the terms of the initiative to renegotiating”.

Rice also took note of the requirement of an annual Presidential determination that India is cooperating on the Iran nuclear issue. She conveyed to the committee heads that India is already cooperating on the issue with the US and so placing such conditions was not healthy for the bilateral relationship.

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Though the threat-reduction amendment calls for a joint effort in developing technologies to further non-proliferation through this programme, the correlation drawn by critics here was with the genesis of the programme which aimed at safeguarding nuclear weapons facilities in breakway republics of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

What has also been overlooked is the fact that the same desire was expressed by the Congress four years ago. In 2002, the US Congress, through Section 8171 of the Department of Defence Appropriation Act, had asked the US Administration to establish such a programme with India and Pakistan.

But like several other issues that the Congress desires but the Administration chooses not to pursue, there has been no forward movement on this 2002 assertion until now.

It’s learnt that the current plan is to conclude the conference and come up with a reconciled version of the Bill by Wednesday that can be put to vote in the next two days.

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While this happens in Washington, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns is slated to be in India next week to hold talks on taking forward other elements of the deal including the conclusion of the Indo-US bilateral agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation. The working target for both sides to implement all aspects of the deal is May 2007.

The Bush Administration’s effort over the next few days, sources said, will be to bring most of the contentious issues into the non-binding section so that they are not mandatory for the Administration to observe. It is clear now that the threat reduction programme is a non-binding element, but the ban on selling enrichment and reprocessing technology, the stringent end-use monitoring programme and that Washington will look to block cooperation if India were to violate MTCR and NSG guidelines are key Indian concerns that are still binding on the Administration.