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Bush ushers India into nuclear club
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-03 07:41
Reversing decades of U.S. policy, President Bush ushered India into the
world's exclusive nuclear club Thursday with a landmark agreement to share
nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with this energy-starved nation in return
for its acceptance of international safeguards.
U.S. President
George W. Bush, left, leans in to listen to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh as they participate in a meeting with U.S. and Indian CEO's at
Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, Thursday, March 2, 2006.
[AP] | Eight months in the making, the accord
would end India's long isolation as a nuclear maverick that defied world appeals
and developed nuclear weapons. India agreed to separate its tightly entwined
nuclear industry 錕斤拷 declaring 14 reactors as commercial facilities and eight as
military 錕斤拷 and to open the civilian side to international inspections for the
first time.
The agreement must be approved by Congress, and Bush acknowledged that might
be difficult because India still refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty.
"I'm trying to think differently, not stay stuck in the past," said Bush, who
has made improving relations with India a goal of his administration.
Celebrating their agreement, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, "We have
made history today, and I thank you."
The deal was sealed a day before Bush begins an overnight visit to Pakistan,
a close ally struggling with its own terrorism problems. An American diplomat
and three other people were killed when a suicide attacker rammed a car packed
with explosives into theirs. The bombing was in Karachi, about 1,000 miles south
of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, where Bush will meet with Pervez Musharraf,
the military leader who took power in a 1999 coup.
U.S. officials said there was evidence the U.S. diplomat, foreign service
officer David Foy, was targeted.
"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan,"
Bush said at a news conference with Singh in New Delhi.
Bush aides said there were security concerns about the president going to
Pakistan but that officials were satisfied adequate precautions were in place.
"But this is not a risk-free undertaking," said national security adviser
Stephen Hadley.
The U.S.-India nuclear deal was seen as the centerpiece of better relations
between two countries.
India has more than 1 billion people, and its booming economy has created
millions of jobs along with consumer demands that have attracted American
businesses. India's middle class has swelled to 300 million 錕斤拷 more than the
population of the United States. Still, 80 percent of Indians live on less than
$2 a day.
Bush acknowledged that Washington and New Delhi were estranged during the
Cold War, when India declared itself a nonaligned nation but tilted toward
Moscow. "Now the relationship is changing dramatically," he said.
Bush began the day by paying respects at a memorial to Mohandas K. Gandhi,
India's independence leader and apostle of nonviolence. Following tradition, the
president and his wife, Laura, left their shoes behind. Bush also conferred with
the CEOs of Indian and American businesses, religious leaders and the head of
India's political opposition.
Bush and Singh announced new bilateral cooperation on issues from investment,
trade and health to agriculture, the environment and even mangoes. Bush agreed
to resume imports of the juicy, large-pitted fruit after a 17-year ban.
The president ended the day at a state dinner with Indian President A.P.J.
Abdul Kalam under a crescent moon in a lush courtyard of the presidential
palace. Waiters in red tunics and red-and-white turbans scurried to serve
broccoli-almond soup, seafood and peach ice cream after toasts of mango juice by
the two heads of state.
The nuclear agreement drew fire from congressional critics.
"With one simple move the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules
that the entire world has been playing by and broken his own word to assure that
we will not ship nuclear technology to India without the proper safeguards,"
said Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, senior Democrat on the House Energy
and Commerce Committee.
In New York, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended
the deal.
"India and Pakistan had never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and
therefore they weren't in violation of it by having nuclear programs," he said.
Bush said helping India with nuclear power would reduce the global demand for
energy which has sent gasoline prices soaring.
"To the extent that we can reduce demand for fossil fuels, it will help the
American consumer," Bush said.
It also could be a boon for American companies that have been barred from
selling reactors and material to India.
Critics have complained the deal rewards bad behavior and undermines efforts
to prevent states like Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. The
White House said India was unique because it had protected its nuclear
technology and not been a proliferator.
The administration also argued it was a good deal because it would provide
international oversight for a program that has been secret since India entered
the nuclear age in 1974.
"In its largest sense, in the geopolitical sense, the agreement today removes
a basic irritant in the relations between India and the United States over the
last 30 years," said Nick Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs."
The agreement has no impact on India's nuclear weapons program. "It's not a
perfect deal in the sense that we haven't captured 100 percent of India's
nuclear program," Burns acknowledged.
The agreement grew out of an accord Bush and Singh signed last July to
establish a new relationship in civil nuclear energy.
The United States and other countries slapped sanctions on India and Pakistan
after they conducted nuclear weapons tests 1998 but those penalties were lifted
after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States sought
allies against al-Qaida.
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