WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has pledged to support the bipartisan legislation on the New Delhi-Washington civilian nuclear deal. However, it is against "deal-breaker" amendments by the U.S. Congress that will force it to "renegotiate" the pact.

"We pledged to Congress today that we would favour, support a majority vote, a straight up and down vote in Congress at the end of the process on that bilateral agreement," Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told a forum organised by the Congressional Task Force on U.S.-India Trade and the U.S. India Business Alliance here on Wednesday.

But he warned: "We have always said at the beginning that we wouldn't support deal breakers — requirements and amendments that would force us to go back and renegotiate this agreement. We are not willing to do that. Because of the interplay between Congress and the administration, this is a stronger Bill. Congress has been able to add its own views and I think the Bill is strengthened because of that. We are optimistic that this legislation can now go forward. We have an opportunity to have bipartisan victory for the American people."

Panel to fine-tune text

The House International Relations Committee is meeting on June 27 for a "mark-up" or fine-tuning of the text of the bipartisan legislation authored by its Chairman Henry Hyde and ranking member Tom Lantos on the deal. The next day the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark up a Bill authored by its Chairman Richard Lugar and ranking Democrat Jospeh Biden.

Mr. Burns said the administration was not taking anything for granted on the deal. "We know we have to earn the support of Congress and Congress has to be convinced that this particular piece of legislation being proposed by the administration is in our national interest. We think it is good for our strategic relationship, good for non-proliferation regimes. It is a winner for the United States on all counts but we have a way to go here."

Lawmakers had the right to see the India-International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement as also the bilateral civil nuclear agreement called "123 Agreement." On the role of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, Mr. Burns said it was perhaps waiting to see how Congress reacted to the proposed legislation. But he did not comment when he was asked whether Washington would seek to duck rules if consensus was not forthcoming from the 45-member group.

On the crisis over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons ambitions, Mr. Burns said India was "part of the solution. If you are looking at India and trying to determine whether it has done the right thing in Iran, we think India has been part of the solution. And we are very grateful to the Indian Government for the leadership it has given."

Bush to meet Manmohan

President Bush would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G-8 summit in Russia next month. "I don't think it [the deal] is formally on the agenda, but this is certainly an issue that is going to be discussed at the summit. Prime Minister Singh will be there and so I would imagine that there will be a lot of informal discussions and we would hope for the full support of all the countries there," Mr. Burns told reporters. — PTI

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