U.S. Blames Pakistan Proliferation for Divide                                                            

A U.S. State Department official said yesterday that Pakistan’s loose proliferation history has kept the United States from pursuing a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Pakistan similar to the U.S.-Indian deal announced last week (see GSN, July 27).

We have “been very clear that because of the issues with proliferation from Pakistan, that it’s a very different situation between those two countries,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a press briefing yesterday.  “The fact that we have this agreement with India now is a clear recognition that there is a real difference.”

Casey said the United States hopes to bring New Delhi’s civilian nuclear program into the “nonproliferation mainstream” through its pending deal with India.

“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,” Casey added (U.S. State Department release, July 30).

The United States and India must quickly clear the agreement with international agencies and their own governments in order to finalize the deal before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office, the U.S. ambassador to India said yesterday (see GSN, July 30).

For the U.S. Congress to approve the deal, Indian officials must prepare a plan for inspections of its civilian nuclear plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group must modify its nuclear export guidelines that currently bar trade with nations outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“We are confident we can get this through Congress but there are certain considerations that need to be borne in mind,” Ambassador David Mulford said. “One of those is the passage of time.” (Y.P. Rajesh, Washington Post, July 30)

France, a key NSG member, agreed with India yesterday to complete a bilateral civilian nuclear deal, the Press Trust of India reported.

“Both parties stressed their common endeavor to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, including power generation, and agreed to conclude expeditiously a bilateral cooperation agreement,'' the French Embassy in New Delhi said in a statement (Press Trust of India/NDTV, July 30).

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