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Ackerman hopes India will complete internal processes

Washington: Ahead of his visit to New Delhi next week, senior U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman has said he is looking forward to Indian government completing its “internal processes” on the historic nuclear deal so that the accord can be approved by the American Congress.

Maintaining that it will be foolish to squander away the gains in the bilateral relationship of the last decade, especially over the last three years, the New York Democrat, who is Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Middle East and South Asia, said he strongly supported the 123 Agreement, which would operationalise the nuclear deal.

However, he said “there was much more to the July 2005 joint statement [between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W Bush] than civil nuclear cooperation and there is much more to U.S.-India relations than just the 123 agreement.”

“In fact the 2005 statement covered a broad range of issues among which civil nuclear cooperation was just one,” Mr. Ackerman said at a hearing titled ‘More Than Just The 123 Agreement: The Future of U.S.-India Relations’ on Wednesday.

Mr. Ackerman, whose remarks came amid the UPA-left deadlock over the nuclear deal, will be in New Delhi between July 2 and 4, even as sequencing of his overall five-nation trip that will also take him to Egypt, Israel, Pakistan and Afghanistan is still being worked out, sources told PTI.

He is expected to exchange views with the leadership in New Delhi on the nuclear deal and other issues of mutual interest. At the hearing, Mr. Ackerman said the various initiatives were not just pronouncements made by heads of government and forgotten, but “they’ve been matched by follow-up and demonstrable success.”

“One area of long-standing cooperation I haven’t mentioned is counter-terrorism. India has been victim of terrorism for far longer than have we.”

The senior Democrat, however, maintained that differences with New Delhi would also have to be pointed out — the major one being that of India’s relations with Iran. — PTI

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