'India-US N-deal has bipartisan support in Cong'
Washington, Apr 8: The United States said there is good bipartisan support for the process of ratifying the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.
Calling the agreement ''an important'' one, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday said that the Bush administration looked forward to continuing to work with Congress, to answer their questions, hearing any issues that they might want to bring up and talking to them about the importance of this agreement.''
''The agreement goes to build our strategic relationship to ensure energy security for India as well as the United States. It would also, for the first time, bring India's civilian nuclear programme under international safeguards, which is an important development,'' he said.
He mentioned that US President George W Bush has earlier noted that India was not a country that was engaged in proliferation. They had a good nonproliferation record. And we had to look at the reality of the situation.'' In this context, Mr Mc Clellan also mentioned how the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator Joseph Biden and Senator Barack Obama (Democra, Illinois) and others have expressed willingness to ''support this agreement, because they recognise the importance of moving forward on it to both our energy and national security interests.''
He added that besides this, President Bush in his meetings with the lawmakers at the White House, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, have also been working very closely with members of Congress, to garner as much support as possible for the deal.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli talking to Washington-based foreign journalists ruled out any arms race in South Asia as a result of the nuclear deal.''On the contrary, it brings ''India into an international fold and they're going to be consistent with other countries and other international practices, so that's a good thing,'' he said.
Mr Ereli also said the deal is one that contributes to transparency, to confidence, and frankly, to a lessening of tensions, not an increasing of tensions that are, frankly, conducive to arms races.'' ''By declaring its civil nuclear plants and putting those plants under IAEA safeguards, the world is going to know, including Pakistan, and have assurances what India is doing at those plants,'' he said.
Replying
to
questions
at
the
Foreign
Press
Center
here
he
said,
''Obviously,
we
don't
think
it's
going
to
fuel
an
arms
race
because
nobody
has
an
interest
in
an
arms
race,
least
of
all
the
United
States.
And
in
fact,
our
view
is
that
this
deal
is
going
to
eliminate
or
reduce
the
kinds
of
doubts
and
insecurities
that
fuel
arms
races,
as
opposed
to
contribute
to
those
doubts
and
insecurities.''
''Why?
Because
what
India
is
doing
here
is,
frankly,
taking
its
programme
out
of
the
shadows
and
exceeding
to
a
level
of
visibility
and
transparency
which
can
only
contribute
to
security
and
reassurance,''
he
added.
UNI