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India retains its sovereign right, says Burns

“We’ll be very supportive of India at NSG meeting”

Washington: The United States has said India retains the “sovereign right” to explode a nuclear device but hopes that such a situation will not arise.

“India retains its sovereign rights, but the U.S. retains its legal rights as well,” Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns told a group of journalists here on Friday. He was asked whether New Delhi had the right to test.

The agreement had taken into account the “worst case” scenario, he said, “but we hope very much that it [right of return of nuclear fuel and technology] won’t be necessary because we hope that conditions that prompt it will not materialise.”

Mr. Burns suggested that New Delhi might not explode an atomic device. Noting that it was for India to decide on a nuclear test, he said: “But obviously in the modern world, the 21st century, advanced nuclear powers largely do not test nuclear weapons. The United States does not test its weapons, Britain is not testing its weapons.”

The U.S. preserved the “legal right” to recall fuel and technology but that would be the “choice” of the President of the day and “not automatic.”

“If you look ahead and you try to envision what would constitute a discontinuity of supply, how would that happen? There are four or five or six ways that could happen and only one of them has to do with a nuclear test.”

“If somehow supplies for environmental reasons, for political reasons are discontinued to India, then of course India has the benefit of working with the U.S. and other countries in construction of a strategic fuel supply reserve that could help it, if there is discontinuity.”

“I think there are probably more likely scenarios than the one you are asking about — nuclear testing,” Mr. Burns said, a day after the text of the 123 agreement was made public.

He said the U.S. intended to be “very supportive” of India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting and to help convince other countries that the India-U.S. nuclear deal was in everyone’s interests.

“We are partners with India. This is not an antagonistic relationship. We are friends,” Mr. Burns stressed. — PTI

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