Washington, April 24 : The US has said the civilian nuclear initiative with India is bound by the 123 agreement and not the Hyde Act and it saw no inconsistency between the two.

“We don’t see any inconsistency between what we were allowed to do and required to do under the Hyde Act, but what binds India and the United States together is the 123 agreement, not the Act,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher said here.

India has been insisting that it was bound only by the bilateral 123 agreement and not by the Hyde Act but certain statements from Washington gave a differing view.

“We don’t see any inconsistency between the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement. The requirements of the US law are on us to meet. The essential function of the Act is to enable a nuclear deal with India, because otherwise under American law we were prohibited from doing anything with India,” Boucher said.

The US official rejected the notion that he has somehow dodged the issue in the past. “No, I didn’t,” Boucher said in response to a query.

“And so the Hyde Act is what makes it possible for us to sign this deal and conclude the agreement. The agreement binds the US and India once it’s fully ratified and finished,” he added.

The senior State Department official also stressed that the civilian nuclear deal with India is not a political issue so far as the Republicans and the Democrats are concerned but what has to be borne in mind is the political calendar in the US in the context of the elections and that the Bush administration is indeed worried about this.