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News of Jan
6, 2007
Iranian Clause may hold in India-US Bilateral Nuclear Deal
New
Delhi, Jan 6
A Democrat-controlled US Congress is likely to insist on India's
cooperation with the US to contain the Iranian nuclear programme in
a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation pact the two countries are
negotiating, Bob Kerrey, a leading Democrat and former governor of
Nebraska, said here Saturday.
"That's going to hold with the Democrats' control of the US
Congress. Looking at the American public opinion on the issue
(Iranian nuclear programme), it's likely to hold," Kerrey, who has
served as US senator for 12 years, said in response to a question on
the India-US civil nuclear cooperation legislation passed by the US
Congress last month.
"It's a prediction that may or may not come true," Kerrey, however,
added in the same breath. Kerrey, who is currently president of The
New School University, New York, said this after delivering a
lecture on 'India-US relations: A Congressional Perspective' at the
India Habitat Centre here. The lecture was organised by PUKAR
(Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) - a Mumbai-based
NGO and The New School University, New York.
India has objected to certain "extraneous and prescriptive" clauses
in the Henry J. Hyde India-US Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act
that was signed into law by US President George Bush last month.
The legislation, among other things, contains a "non-binding clause"
that links civil nuclear cooperation between India and the US with
New Delhi's support to Washington's efforts to contain the Iranian
nuclear programme, suspected of developing nuclear weapons.
Kerrey was, however, broadly supportive of the India-US civil
nuclear legislation saying that a majority of Americans saw it as
"an effort to help the world's largest democracy."
"We see a common bond. The Indian American community is rising in
influence," Kerrey, who was also a member of the 9/11 Commission
that went into the causes of terror attacks in New York and
Washington over five years ago, stressed.
The Leftist allies of the ruling coalition in India have objected to
the Iranian clause in the nuclear legislation that, they charge,
compromises independence of the country's foreign policy. In his
intervention in parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also
expressed concern over prescriptive clauses and expressed hope that
these issues will be discussed when the two sides negotiate a
bilateral 123 agreement- the sole legal document that will govern
the terms of nuclear commerce between the two countries.
India and the US will launch the third round of negotiations on the
bilateral 123 agreement later this month.
IANS
News of Jan
6, 2007
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