Lawmakers decry Iran-India alliance

Washington, May 3 (UNI) Key congressional supporters of closer ties with India have sent a toughly worded bipartisan letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warning of "grave concern" that India's ties with Iran "have the potential to significantly harm prospects" for a nuclear cooperation deal with the United States.

The letter is noteworthy for its tone and because it was signed by the Democratic as well as Republican leaders of the key congressional panels involved in the issue. It was sent a day after Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon publicly dismissed reports of closer military cooperation with Iran, according to the Washington Post.

The letter to the Prime Minister lists a series of recent meetings between Indian and Iranian officials as indications of growing cooperation between the two countries on military and energy issues.

"We must stress that the subject of India's strengthening relationship with Iran will inevitably be a factor" when Congress votes on the final language of the nuclear agreement, the letter said.

"It is difficult for us to fathom why India, a democracy engaged in its own struggle against terrorism, would want to enhance security cooperation with a repressive government widely regarded as the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism," the letter said.

It added that "India's pursuit of closer relations with Iran appears to be inconsistent with the letter and spirit" of Bush and Singh's announcement of a "global partnership" between the two countries.

Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have pushed hard for the nuclear deal with India, saying that rewriting American laws to allow peaceful nuclear cooperation with India will help usher in, a new era in US-India relations. But nonproliferation experts in the US have strongly objected to the deal as they fear it would weaken rules preventing the spread of nuclear weapons if the US sold nuclear technology to India -- a country that has refused to join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

When Congress debated a bill last year to initially approve the accord with India, lawmakers, including Tom Lantos D-CA considered tying final passage to India's dealings with Iran but dropped that provision under pressure from the administration.

The Post quoted unnamed Congressional aides, to say that anger has been building up in the US Congress over the perception that India stepped up contacts with Iran this year, just weeks after the initial bill was approved by Congress. Lawmakers '' are not just alarmed but actually outraged by India's outreach to Iran,'' one aide said.

The letter was signed by Reps Tom Lantos (D-Calif), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla), the panel's ranking Republican; Howard L Berman (D-Calif); Gary L Ackerman (D-N Y), chairman of West Asia and South Asia subcommittee; Mike Pence (Ind), the subcommittee's ranking Republican; Brad Sherman (D-Calif), chairman of the terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee; and Ed Royce (Calif), subcommittee's ranking Republican.

According to the Post report, an Indian Embassy official said that he had not seen the letter but that Menon's comments on Tuesday had addressed the issue.

UNI