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.

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.

... contd.