Indo-US deal threatens non-proliferation efforts: Experts

Maintaining that business and political considerations had trumped security interests in the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, two experts have said the recently-passed legislation on the deal threatens global non-proliferation efforts.

The legislation, known as the 'Henry J Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006' that was passed by the 109th Congress on Monday will be signed into law by President George W Bush on December 18.

"Congress spurned provisions that would have required commitments from India to restrain its production of nuclear weapons and nuclear bomb material. The legislation also overlooks the US obligation to uphold UN Security Council Resolution 1172 of June 1998. The resolution calls upon India and Pakistan to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, stop nuclear weapons deployments, and halt the production of nuclear bomb material," Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association and Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress said.

They alleged that if President Bush signed the deal into law, other countries involved in global trade in nuclear materials must work through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group to "...fix what ails this flawed US-India nuclear deal."

In a commentary titled "A Non Proliferation Disaster", they said Republicans and Democrats were equally to blame for having "rejected amendments that would have conditioned civil nuclear trade with India on its joining with the United States and other nuclear-weapon states in capping the production of more nuclear bomb material."