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Not influencing India's Iran policy: Boucher

WASHINGTON: Seeking to allay concerns in India over the reference to Iran in its new law on nuclear cooperation, Washington has said New Delhi was not involved in the matter that was strictly between the American Congress and the administration.

Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher said the reporting requirement on Iran "does not impinge" on India and hinted that the cooperation would be guided by the 123 agreement, being negotiated to operationalise the civil nuclear deal.

Congress wanted the administration to "report to them and it doesn't impinge on India because it doesn't involve India.''

Mr. Boucher was referring to a provision in the Henry J. Hyde U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act, which says the U.S. Government will seek India's cooperation in isolating and sanctioning Iran.

This caused concern in India, with various political parties apprehending that Washington was trying to influence New Delhi's foreign policy through the deal.

"... it is a report that we have to provide to our Congress on an issue that everybody knows we're interested in. So I don't see how that breaks any new ground for anybody in that matter,'' Mr. Boucher said.

``I don't know that it needs a particular amount of clarification. As far as I remember, it ends up being in reporting language.''

Mr. Boucher said: ``No one in India should be surprised that the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Government care about India's relationship with Iran, particularly when it comes to high technology exports in nuclear matter, military matters.''

The substance of cooperation with India would be the bilateral accord, a ``fairly standard'' agreement, of which third countries were usually not part, he said. — PTI

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Not influencing India's Iran policy: Boucher

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