123 Agreement may go before US Congress by fall

Washington, July 31: The Bush Administration will put the 123 Agreement, relating to the US-India civil nuclear deal, before the US Congress sometime in the fall 'contingent' on the successful conclusion of two major steps.

Firstly, India has to finalize its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and secondly, the United States has to work with its partners in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to develop an exception for New Delhi to be able to move forward with the deal.

These steps were spelt out by State Department's Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey in reply to a question yesterday.

''Once those two steps are done, we'll be able to present the formal 123 Agreement with all these accompanying steps to the Congress for their review and approval,'' Casey said.

As the Agreement itself had now been finalized between the two countries ''we need these two additional steps before we send it to the Congress in terms of signing dates or other things.

I have to leave it to the lawyers on that one.'' Casey, however, said, ''the important point is, is that we're moving forward with this.

''We do need to get these other two pieces in place before presenting it to Congress and then we look forward to having an opportunity to discuss it with the members on the Hill and hopefully to see them approve what we believe is a deal that's in the best interest of both the nations.'' Reacting to a question as to why such a deal was not possible with Pakistan, which had challenged the US-India Civil Nuclear Deal by test-firing another missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons, Casey recalled Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns having said that the US' relationship with both India and Pakistan were important but India is a responsible player.

Justifying his case, he said, ''In the case of India, we've moved forward with this arrangement because, as the President [Bush] said and as you heard from Nick [Nicholas Burns ]on Friday, India has been a responsible actor.

''It's been outside the nonproliferation regimes, but it's actually behaved responsibly. It hasn't proliferated weapons technology. It hasn't done anything to undermine international assurances.'' The Deputy Spokesman added ''The 123 Agreement takes us one more step closer towards bringing the vast majority of India's nuclear capabilities, specifically, their civilian nuclear side, into the nonproliferation mainstream.

''We believe that's something that strengthens nonproliferation regimes throughout the world. It's something that IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei believes so as well. And so we're going to continue with this agreement and continue with it based on those very rationale and logic behind it.''

UNI