US law-makers mum on nuclear deal

      Washington: Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran wrapped up his three-day visit to Washington without getting enough encouraging signs from US lawmakers who preferred to keep silent on ratification of crucial India-US civilian nuclear deal in the present session of the Congress. Saran who on Saturday urged the US lawmakers to endorse the landmark bilateral nuclear deal and cautioned Capitol Hill against making any substantive changes in it that would retard its implementation said: "If you start making revisions and changes, that balance is likely to be upset".

     Skeptic US Senators opposing the nuclear deal have cited that the deal, if ratified, would damage the nuclear non-proliferation activities and would bolster India's strategic nuclear weapon programme. Saran met a large number of US lawmakers to dispel such fears and even told them that "the deal is very crucial and should be seen as a part and parcel of a much larger relationship that has developed between the two countries". If the agreement is not supported "there would be a loss in terms of the built up expectations and enthusiasm", Saran had said. Meanwhile, a section of Congressmen, predominantly Democrats have registered their opposition to the deal by moving a motion in the House against it. Saran also met Democrat leaders like Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Henry Hyde who have been opposing the deal more due to their domestic political reasons as they do not want to give the Republican President George Bush to get away with a foreign policy victory when the Congress will soon be going for a mid- term election later this year.

     The high point of Saran's visit has been his meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns as both of them assured White House's strong commitment to working with the US Senate and the Nuclear Suppliers Group to advance the civilian nuclear energy agreement between the two countries. However, New Delhi is expected to take the discussion forward on April 7 when US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher and another Assistant Secretary Stephen Rademaker will be coming to New Delhi. Both these US officials were in Vienna earlier to participate in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting where US circulated the draft seeking necessary changes to be brought in the NSG rules so as to make it coherent with the March 2 India - US civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement.

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