Resolution in US House seeks restraints on n-trade with India

The resolution calls on the Bush administration not to support any exemption for India in the NSG guidelines “that is not consistent with the Hyde Act and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.”

Cutting across party lines, a small group of senior lawmakers have introduced a non-binding resolution in the US House of Representatives seeking tough restraints on nuclear trade with India.

The move is seen as indicating not only displeasure by a section of members but also intended to significantly delay or perhaps outright derail the final passage of the civilian nuclear initiative that will operationalise the Indo-US deal.

The resolution introduced on Thursday night in the House by Howard L Berman, Democrat from California; Flordia Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; and Jeff Fortenberry, Republican from Nebraska, is non-binding. All of them are members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a key panel of the Congress that will have to approve the final legislation when submitted by the administration.

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The introduction of the non-binding resolution comes at a time when the 45-member Nuclear Supplier’s Group is getting ready to debate the Indo-US civil nuclear deal and on the eve of the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei’s visit to India.

The resolution says there should not be any change to the NSG guidelines until such time the Bush administration has “answered all outstanding questions raised by Congress regarding apparent inconsistencies between the nuclear cooperation agreement and the Henry J Hyde US-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006” as also resolving with India “all differences of interpretation of the provisions in the nuclear cooperation agreement.”

Democrats and Republicans have also called on the Bush administration not to support any exemption for India in the NSG guidelines “that is not consistent with the Hyde Act and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.”

The resolution sought specific inclusion of provisions like immediate termination of all nuclear commerce by NSG members if India detonates a nuclear device or if the IAEA has determined that India has violated its international safeguards commitments.

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It also called for a requirement that says any safeguards agreement concluded between India and IAEA provides for safeguards in perpetuity for all nuclear materials, equipment, and technology, and all facilities designated as “civil,” in accordance with IAEA standards, principles, and practices.

Besides, the resolution sought a prohibition on the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technology and heavy-water production technology by any NSG member to India and a requirement that all bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements between NSG members and India explicitly prohibit the replication of any dual-use technology or use of such technology in any unsafeguarded Indian facilities.

It also stressed on the need for a stipulation that NSG supplier states may not grant India consent to reprocess nuclear fuel supplied by an NSG member state except in a facility that is under permanent and unconditional IAEA safeguards, and that any material produced in such a facility may not be transferred to any unsafeguarded facility.