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Friday, Mar 23, 2007
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We need to stop pipeline, says Bodman

Special Correspondent

"Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline can help Tehran build nuclear arms"

— Photo: Paul Noronha

Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar with U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman (left) in Mumbai on Thursday.

MUMBAI: United States Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said here on Thursday that the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline could help Iran build nuclear weapons and "we need to stop this." Mr. Bodman said, "there had been talks among Iran, India and other countries about finding ways of developing Iran's oil and gas assets and if that is allowed to go forward, in our judgment, this will contribute to the development of nuclear weapons."

He was talking to reporters after emerging from a round table discussion on `Indo-U.S. Nuclear Cooperation: Opportunities and Challenges,' organised by the FICCI here. The Atomic Energy Commission Chairman and Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, Anil Kakodkar, and Chairman and Managing Director of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India S.K. Jain attended the meeting.

Mr. Bodman said he had conveyed the concern at the highest level in New Delhi but added, "we continue to work with the Indian government to finalise the civilian nuclear deal and these two concerns operate in separate areas." He said that the purpose of his current visit to India was the nuclear deal.

"That is our primary focus and that is why I am here today," Mr. Bodman said. Earlier in the day, he visited two boiling water nuclear reactors at Tarapur which Dr. Kakodkar described as the oldest working nuclear plants of General Electric. GE built them in the sixties.

Discuss several possibilities

Welcoming him at the round table, Dr. Kakodkar said that his visit had enabled the two sides to discuss several future possibilities under the deal.

The roundtable was a closed-door discussion among U.S. officials, Indian nuclear scientists and businessmen. The media was asked to leave the venue after the opening remarks by Dr. Kakodkar and Mr. Bodman expressing optimism about the deal. Among the nuclear scientists present was Dr. Sreekumar Bannerjee, director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre here.

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