Indo-US nuke deal will be taken up after August 4th

Washington, July 19: The US-India civilian nuclear deal may not come up for floor action in the US Senate before the chamber goes into summer recess beginning August 4, according to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Luga.

Lugar has ruled out the likelihood of the deal coming up for floor action before the Senate later this month saying that Senator Majority leader Bill Frist has not yet set a date for the debate and vote on the deal.

''I hope that after the summer recess it will be pushed,'' he told reporters here yesterday.

Till now the impression garnered from lawmakers and the administration officials was that the House of Representatives would take it up for floor action sometime before the House goes into summer recess on July 28 while the Senate would follow it up sometime later.

In his keynote address to the Indian American Friendship Council, celebrating its tenth anniversary here Senator Lugar said a lot of thought and input from experts had been built into the Lugar-Biden legislation that was adopted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by an 16-2 votes.

It ensured that Congress prerogatives were preserved with regard to the 123 agreement with India unlike the administration's original legislative proposal.

However, some in the State department and the Indian Foreign Office are miffed that Congress has changed the language of the agreement that was agreed upon, originally.

Lugar sought to allay any fears in this context saying that the ''changes are constructive and hoped that even if they are controversial the leaders on the two sides will not raise objections and delay the legislative process.'' But, he also warned that any tinkering in the language/legislation would only delay the legislative process.

Saying that this is how Congress works as it is the deliberative process, Lugar expressed the hope that the changes made in the Senate version of the legislation, which he termed as constructive, would be accepted by statesmen on both sides.

''Because in my judgement it must happen -- the history of two countries coming together is so important for the history of the world as well as for our basic security'' the Indiana Republican lawmaker said.

The Lugar-Biden mark, unlike the administration's original legislative proposal, preserves Congress' prerogatives with regard to the 123 Agreement.

Under the administration's original proposal, the 123 Agreement would have entered into force 90 days after submission unless both houses of Congress voted against it and then overcame a likely Presidential veto.

In his remarks earlier this month to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Lugar said: ''I am pleased the administration changed course on this matter and agreed to submit the 123 Agreement with India to Congress under normal procedures. This means that both the House and the Senate must cast a positive vote of support before the 123 Agreement can enter into force.'' In our view, this fully protects Congress' role in the process and ensures Congressional views will be taken into consideration, Mr Lugar said.

India has however said time and again that it would go strictly by what has been said in the July 18 statement made during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US and anything beyond that would be unacceptable to it, he added.

UNI