US welcomes Senate panel vote on nuclear deal

Washington, June 30 : United States said it will work closely with India to ''fulfill the promise'' of extending civilian nuclear technology and equipment to New Delhi as envisaged in the July 18 and the March 2 statements made by President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Tom Casey, a State Department Spokesman, said in a statement here yesterday that the administration welcomes the ''positive and strong support'' shown by the US Congress when two influential committees of the Senate and the House voted overwhelmingly for the nuclear arrangement with India.

Soon after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly 16-2 for the deal with India, Mr Casey said ''We welcome the strong bilateral support for our civil nuclear cooperation initiative shown by today's 16 to 2 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Tuesday's 37 to 5 vote in the House International Relations Committee.'' ''We look forward to continuing to work with India to fulfill the promise of the July 18, 2005 and March 2, 2006 statements made by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh,'' he said adding that ''we appreciate the hard work done by both Committees and their prompt consideration of the legislation.'' ''We also look forward to continuing to work with Congress in the coming weeks to address a few remaining issues in the bills, as the progress on this major US-India initiative continues,'' Mr Casey said.

UNI

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