No US approval seen this year for India atomic pact
Wed, Jul 02, 2008
Reuters
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - THE United States Congress will not have time to approve a landmark civilian nuclear agreement with India at the centre of a bitter Indian political row, a key US lawmaker on South Asian affairs said.
'The clock has run out on our side of the border, because the clock has run out on their side,' said Mr Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.
'They're not going to be able to do it in time for us to act in this calendar year and certainly not during President Bush's administration,' he said on Tuesday by telephone from Pakistan on a trip that will take him to India this week.
The pact, signed by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House in 2005, would give India access to US nuclear fuel and technology the country had been denied after its 1974 nuclear bomb test.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), one of four leftist parties supporting Mr Singh's coalition government, have threatened to halt their crucial support for the ruling coalition in Parliament if Mr Singh moves ahead with a deal they say will make India a pawn of Washington.
Months of wrangling in India have held up a pact that still needs time-consuming clearances from the International Atomic Energy Agency and 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group and then would have to go to the US Congress for final approval.
Mr Ackerman's comments were the most explicit of a series of statements by lawmakers and officials that time was running out ahead of US congressional and presidential elections in November and the inauguration of Mr Bush's successor in January.
