The Hindu : National : Mulford: deal should be sealed by year-end

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Saturday, Jul 01, 2006

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Mulford: deal should be sealed by year-end

Diplomatic Correspondent

Mulford hopes the U.S. House and Senate will vote on two Bills in this regard

NEW DELHI: A nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States should be finally sealed by the end of 2006, U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford told presspersons at his official residence on Friday.

Speaking after the passage of two Bills by the U.S. House of Representatives International Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Mulford hoped that the full House and Senate would vote on the two Bills some time between July 10 and August 4.

Given that the language of the Bills passed by the House and Senate panels is different, the Ambassador said a reconciliation process would have to be set in motion. A panel of members from the two Houses of Congress would meet to reconcile differences in language after the Bills were passed.

If agreement on common language was reached, then the U.S. President would sign the Bill into law. Simultaneously, India and the United States were negotiating the "123" agreement, which, too, would have to be approved by the U.S. Congress.

Arguing that the vote in the two Committees reflected that both Republicans and Democrats were supporting the India-specific legislation to allow for civilian nuclear cooperation, Mr. Mulford was hopeful that this would be replicated on the floor of Congress.

Pointing out that the American Jewish Committee, a powerful interest group in the U.S. had supported the nuclear deal, the Ambassador said considerable progress had been made in negotiating the bilateral nuclear (123) agreement with India.

"A lot of progress has been made," Mr. Mulford said, stressing that this 123 agreement would "give life" to the changes in American laws to allow for civilian nuclear cooperation.

According to him, 60 per cent of the 123 agreement had been negotiated. Once this accord was clinched then it would have to be put to vote in Congress again, Mr. Mulford said, adding that both Houses could only vote "yes" or "no" — they would have no power to alter the text of the agreement.

Asked if the Bush Administration would work to remove the offensive, but non-binding, language on Iran contained in the Bill passed by the House of Representatives, the Ambassador said this was not operational, legal language. Mr. Mulford added that he did not anticipate that this language would be removed from the Bill.

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