Arrests of Indians not related to nuke deal: US

Washington, Apr 4: The Bush administration today ruled out any connection between the arrests of two Indians on charges of transferring American missile technology to India and the on-going Delhi-Washington civilian nuclear agreement.

"I don't see any connection between these two things," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in reply to a question yesterday.

He, however, said he would expect that the Indian Government would continue to negotiate the so-called 123 Agreement in good faith. "Certainly, the United States will." "Recently we have a team back from New Delhi. They had some discussions with the Indian Government. We regrouped after those discussions. I know that Nick Burns (Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs) who is handling this issue on a daily basis for the United States had some discussions with that team. Got a little bit of feedback from them and I expect that he's going to be in touch with the Indian Government about what course we take now," the spokesman said.

McCormack said, "certainly we're serious about that. We want to ensure that the Indian Government is still serious about concluding this agreement." When asked about the seriousness of the arrests as it was, perhaps, the first time ever that any Indian was arrested, McCormack said, "well, any time you have allegations of violations of the Arms Export Control Act, which is the law under which these indictments were made, it is a serious matter." "And certainly our law enforcement officials state very seriously their obligation to enforce the laws and in this case they have unsealed a 15-count indictment against these two individuals. And in the indictment, there's a formal list of the charges. But, of course, we take this very seriously." Asked whether that Pakistani Government had raised any concerns about this matter, McCormack said, "not that I'm aware of. They may well have, but I'm not aware of any concerns they've raised." The Washington Times yesterday reported the arrest of two Indian nationals on charges of illegally exporting US missile technology to India in a case that US officials say could affect a pending deal on nuclear and space cooperation between the two nations.

The daily says Parthasarathy Sudarshan, 46, and Mythili Gopal, 36, both of Simpsonville, South Carolina, were arrested March 23 based on a 15-count federal grand jury indictment in the District of Columbia unsealed Friday.

The daily says Mr Sudarshan, head of a company called Cirrus Singapore, would be arraigned in US District Court. Miss Gopal, an official with Cirrus US, was released after her court appearance in South Carolina.

The daily quoting the indictment says the two conspired with at least two other Indians to circumvent the US Arms Export Control Act between 2002 and 2006 by purchasing US electronic components used in missiles, sending them to Singapore and then re-exporting them secretly to India's missile and space-launch manufacturer.

It says the items included Static Random Access Memory computer chips made in Phoenix that are designed to withstand extreme temperature changes and have applications for missile guidance systems. They were shipped without a required export license to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC), an Indian government manufacturer of space launchers and missiles.

Other related equipment was described as high-technology capacitors, semiconductors and resistors all with missile applications.

The daily says quoting the indictment said the defendants provided false end-user documents to hide the Indian missile maker as the purchaser.

UNI

Related Stories