U.S. Officials Hopeful on Quick India Deal Passage

By David Ruppe and Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass nuclear export control exceptions for India by the end of the month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said here yesterday (see GSN, July 5).

Another senior State Department official said yesterday that the agency anticipates the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group would agree to a similar waiver of export controls by nuclear technology supplier countries for India.

Group rules prohibit nuclear trade with Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty holdouts India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which are believed to be nuclear-armed. Trade with North Korea, which withdrew from the treaty several years ago, is also banned.

With Bush administration urging, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee in decisive bipartisan votes last month approved draft legislation that would permit exceptions to U.S. export control laws for India despite its nuclear weapons arsenal and weapons program.

“We are hard at work with both houses of Congress, especially with the India caucuses. And we are encouraging both the Senate and House to vote on the civil nuclear initiative this month, before the summer recess,” Rice said, speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association.  

Supporters have expressed concern that Congress would not find time to consider the legislation in the weeks after its summer break or before lawmakers leave Washington to campaign for the November congressional elections.

Approval of this legislation would open the door for the administration’s proposed nuclear cooperation arrangement with India. Included in the draft legislation approved by the committees, however, are requirements that Congress must approve the agreement to supply New Delhi with civilian nuclear material.

Both committees’ drafts also require that the United States obtain nothing short of consensus from the Nuclear Suppliers Group for a rules waiver to allow nuclear trade with India. That could be a challenge, considering reports that a number of members have expressed concern that a waiver for India would undermine the international nuclear nonproliferation regime (see GSN, March 24).

“We are confident … of ultimate success in that effort,” said John Schlosser, the State Department’s director of South and Central Asian affairs, speaking at a panel discussion of U.S.-Indian relations at the Heritage Foundation. 

In describing anticipated security benefits, Rice drew a distinction between how the proposed new relationship would affect what she called the “international nuclear nonproliferation regime” and how it would affect the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The United States through the proposal aims to strengthen the “regime,” which she said the United States “greatly values and unequivocally supports.” The deal would require India to place 14 of its existing 22 nuclear facilities under monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“We desire to strengthen this regime, which is why we believe that India’s continued isolation from it is the wrong policy,” she said.

She called the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty “the cornerstone” of the regime, but did not say the United States aimed to strengthen it with the proposal.

She said, rather, “Let me be clear: We do not support India joining the Nonproliferation Treaty as a nuclear-weapon state; rather, the goal of our initiative is to include India for the first time ever in the global nonproliferation regime.”

Critics have said the proposed deal would undermine the treaty, by violating the spirit and possibly the letter of its first requirement, which is a prohibition against assisting “in any way” countries not recognized as nuclear powers to obtain nuclear weapons. They have said that supplying India with civilian nuclear fuel could allow New Delhi to devote its domestic uranium resources entirely to weapons production — in effect aiding Indian weapons production.

Rice in written comments to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June said that such an outcome would not violate the treaty since U.S. trade to India would be solely to safeguarded facilities.

Two experts wrote in a response that India used safeguarded items in the 1970s to make plutonium for its first nuclear bomb. That prompted Congress to pass the current law requiring full-scope safeguards as a condition of nuclear trade — the law the administration is hoping to waive.

Rice said yesterday that by requiring India to put two-thirds of its existing and planned nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards “this initiative would be a net gain for the cause of nonproliferation worldwide.”

Schlosser, who was director of export control and sanctions in the State Department’s nonproliferation office prior to his current post, said he believes the proposed agreement would “strengthen the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.”

One expert rejected that argument today in an interview with Global Security Newswire.

“The treaty is the fundamental cornerstone of that regime and what the administration is doing is chipping away at that cornerstone, by promising India the benefits of the treaty without India having to undertake any of the obligations of the treaty,” said Arms Control Association Research Director Wade Boese.

“The largest part of the nonproliferation regime is the NPT, and if one is weakening that, what are the pluses that counter that or turn this into a net plus? … We really didn’t get anything new from India,” Boese said.

Rice in her address said nuclear cooperation could bring multiple benefits to the United States and India.

“By addressing India’s unique situation creatively and responsibly, our civil nuclear initiative will elevate our partnership to a new strategic level,” she said, adding it would also “enhance energy security,” “benefit the environment,” create opportunities for American jobs in the civil nuclear sector, and “add to the stability and security of our world.”

Leaders from both the Indian-led organizations expressed support for the potential nuclear cooperation agreement. Hemant Patel, president-elect of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, described potential passage of the nuclear legislation as “a watershed moment which will serve as a platform for the trusting and mutually beneficial strategic relationship between the two countries for years to come.” 

He described his organization as the largest ethnic medical association in the United States, with a constituency of more than 41,000 doctors and 10,000 medical students and residents. “One issue that remains significant is our pledge to do everything on our power as an association … to further Indo-U.S. relations,” he said.

“We probably would not be nearly as far along as we are had it not been for the development of that [Indian-American] community as kind of political force in and of itself in the United States,” Schlosser said.

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