U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday signed legislation enabling a bilateral nuclear trade pact with India, clearing the way for the deal’s final signature (see GSN, Oct. 8).
His signature was a symbolic end to a contentious three-year process that reversed a decades-old U.S. policy that barred nuclear sales to India, which has not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Bush essentially argued yesterday that those old rules should not prevent energy cooperation among nations with common democratic and security values.
“This agreement sends a signal to the world,” he said in remarks at a White House ceremony. “Nations that follow the path of democracy and responsible behavior will find a friend in the United States of America.”
Critics have charged that the trade agreement threatened the international nonproliferation system.
“This deal has gone from bad to worse. From beginning to end, India played hard ball and won,” said Leonor Tomero of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in a statement yesterday. “After the administration caved to Indian demands in negotiations for the past three years, dangerously undermining nonproliferation and disregarding Congress, it again sided with India against U.S. security interests and against Congress by trying to disregard the very minimal nonproliferation provisions included in recently passed congressional legislation.”
Bush, however, asserted that the trade deal would improve nonproliferation efforts.
“India has committed to operate its civil nuclear energy program under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency and other international guidelines. India will continue to build on its strong record of responsibility in operating its nuclear facilities, and India and the United States will cooperate more closely to keep the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of extremists and terrorists,” he said.
In a separate signing statement, Bush sought to ease Indian concerns about possible restrictions on the deal imposed by the U.S. Congress when it recently approved the agreement.
Bush specifically stated that the deal does not prohibit India from reprocessing spent fuel acquired in the deal, provided the process is monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors, and that Congress did not change the deal’s fuel supply assurances.
While not barring India’s right to reprocess, U.S. officials testified last month that they would seek to establish international rules to block the sales of such technology to India.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee are scheduled to sign the final deal tomorrow in another Washington ceremony (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Oct. 9).