Kerry Guardedly Backs Indo-U.S. Nuke Deal

U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday gave guarded support to a nuclear technology sharing deal between the United States and India, Reuters reported (see GSN, Jan. 9).

Kerry said he backed the agreement, “providing you are not undermining the broader goal of nonproliferation itself.”

“In principle, it is better to have India as a participant in the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) procedures and standards with respect to its civilian program than not to have it,” he said yesterday in New Delhi. “And to have a majority portion of that program under those constraints reduces what is available to go into military, so there is a step forward.”

“But ... we cannot only look at this agreement in its bilateral context, it also has larger implications,” he added.

“What Congress will or won't do is going to depend on what the four corners of the agreement finally say when it is arrived at,” Kerry said (Reuters/New York Times, Jan. 12).

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