Nuclear deal clears last US hurdle

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 6: After two days of detailed deliberations, the United States Congress now has one Bill for the Indo-US nuclear deal. It’s learnt that the House and Senate versions of the Bill were reconciled late tonight on Capitol Hill paving the way for a historic exception for India from the strict US non-proliferation regime. This takes the US Administration just one step away from being legally empowered to operationalise the deal and enter into an agreement with India.

According to the last update, the reconciled version had gone for the final clearance of the House Rules Committee. Sources said there has been re-organisation of content in the two Bills so that most of India’s concerns are now non-binding with several of the reporting requirements now clubbed under a couple of “manageable provisions.”

It’s learnt that the Senate’s insistence for “annual certification” by the US Administration that India is complying with all the conditions may be refined to a general reporting requirement that the US Government does in the case of several other laws.

While the final version of the Bill is still be put out officially, the understanding is that the ban on enrichment and reprocessing technology could also be further qualified. The language may be more positive now to include circumstances or conditions under which the law may not apply on the US Administration.

On the Iran nuclear issue, however, the House of Representatives, at the instance of Tom Lantos, agreed by voice vote that the House version of the Bill must defer to the language used by the Senate.

This could have constrained the conferees from making any major changes to the Senate language that asks the US Administration to ensure that India continues its support on the Iran nuclear issue consistent with the United Nations resolutions.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as reported in The Indian Express, had suggested the opposite: that the Senate defer to the House version. However, last-minute lobbying, sources said, is still under way.

Besides this, qualifications could be added in provisions requiring Washington to lobby with other countries in case there is violation of NSG and MTCR guidelines.

What is expected to be clarified is that such drastic steps cannot be automatically triggered without checking the intent of the Indian government.

Largely, it is believed that there have not been many deletions but a lot of effort has gone into refining the language and organising the various clauses of this Bill.

... contd.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.