N-bill: US trying to ensure no changes are made

As concerns were raised in India over some provisions of the Senate bill on Indo-US nuclear deal, the Bush administration has said it is trying to ensure that there is nothing done to "distort, change and re-negotiate" the arrangement reached between the two sides.

"The government of India has been concerned about the same things that the Bush administration has been trying to legislatively get through the United States-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement; and the bottom line is the implementation of the agreement that both sides signed on to ensure that there is nothing to distort the arrangements that have been reached," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher told reporters.

Boucher said that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns on Friday had a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran to talk about the House of Representatives' overwhelming vote in favour of the deal and other issues. He said the administration shared India's "concerns that whatever legislation there is in the United States to implement, the agreement that we both signed upto that did not require or force us into some kind of re-negotiations and did not distort the arrangements we reached."

Referring to India's apprehensions with the Senate's version of the bill, he said there were some provisions in that bill that "raise concerns". However, "on that account and we are at various places, making our views known."

"How exactly the Senate will handle those itself, how these provisions will fare when it goes to conference with the House we will have to see. We have to try to find ways to consistently make clear the legislation that is enacted enables cooperation with India and doesn't distort, change, and try to force renegotiating the deal," Boucher remarked.

"We have been in close touch with the Indian government and we will be in close touch... as the legislation proceeds through the Senate and hopefully into the final leg. It is a matter of continuing consultations with India," he added.

He said the shared goal was to carry out the agreement as President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put it together, as they envisaged it and to implement that in a meaningful way that would make a significant contribution to India's clean energy availability for economic development.

Boucher said the State Department was "delighted", along with its Secretary Condoleezza Rice, with the passage of the United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006 in the House of Representatives.

"We very much appreciate the House Bill and the House vote. I think it accomplishes the central purpose of the legislation, which is to authorise the kind of cooperation we wanted with India and in a manner that does not require changes to the deal or distort the deal," he said.

The senior official stressed the administration was looking forward to "prompt action" in the Senate and with the other pieces of work falling in place the civilian nuclear deal will move from "legislation to reality". "We are not there yet, but this is a tremendous step (the House vote) to making vision to reality," he said.