N-deal: The answers for India's concerns

India's objections to certain sections in the Senate bill on the nuclear deal with the United States came up for discussion at the nomination hearing of John Rood, the US assistant secretary of state for international security and non-proliferation.

The Bush Administration told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it prefers prohibitions on export of enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production technology as well as an end-use monitoring system to track nuclear technology exports to India to stay in the realm of policy as opposed to a matter of law.

But Senate Panel chairman Richard Lugar said some Indian government officials argued that this prohibition in the Senate bill moves the goalpost set by the original July 2005 agreement.

"Did New Delhi not understand United States policy, which you've enunciated again this morning? If they did understand the policy, please give us your opinion on why they opposed placing the prohibition into law but can accept the existence of the policy," the Indiana Republican asked Rood.

In his reply, Rood said that this was an important feature of discussions that led up to the July 18, 2005 joint statement that included language under which the Indian government agreed to work with the US to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies internationally.

"We look forward to civil nuclear cooperation with India, but we've told the Indian government we don't envision that cooperation involving enrichment and reprocessing technologies or the technology for the production of heavy water," Rood said.

Rood pointed out that the Bush Administration has been clear throughout its dealing with India on the US policy on enrichment and reprocessing technologies.

When asked by Lugar on why the administration objected to the Congress placing these policy prohibitions into law, Rood said that such a statutory prohibition would single India out.

"As a matter of policy, we currently don't provide enrichment or reprocessing technologies to any country. We've so testified that we don't intend to provide these technologies to India, or the technology for the production of heavy water either," he said.

"We would prefer to maintain this practice as a matter of policy as opposed to a matter of law and the reason is that such a statutory prohibition, a flat ban that singles out sales to India we think singles India out, and since we don't apply similar statutory bans on trade and enrichment and reprocessing to other nations," Rood added.

Lugar argued that his Foreign Relations Committee provided the administration with the ability to waive these prohibitions for cooperation in Section 106 with India to the global nuclear energy partnership.

"Do not these waivers give the administration the flexibility it needs to carry out future cooperation? And under what other circumstances would the US consider exporting these technologies to India?" the lawmaker asked Rood.

Rood said that this was a subject of discussion during the markup of the bill and the administration appreciated the willingness of the committee to provide these provisions that allow for a waiver authority.

"We would have preferred to have maintained our policy, as a matter of policy, that the US would not export enrichment, reprocessing or heavy water production technology

to India," he said.

Rood also cited the GNEP, the global nuclear energy partnership, as a good example for this.

"A year ago, we would not have envisioned the need for a waiver to allow for this type of cooperation because this hasn't been conceived of yet. Part of our desire to retain this as a matter of policy is that... five years from now we'll be in similar circumstances for subjects we just hadn't thought of today," Rood said.

Turning to Section 107 of the Senate panel's Bill on the civilian nuclear deal, Lugar noted that a proviso requiring US to establish an end use monitoring system to track nuclear technology exports to India was not without precedence.

"A similar requirement exists with China. In your opinion, why does India see this provision as a moving of the goalpost from what was agreed upon in July 2005?" Lugar asked.

In his reply, Rood said the administration would have preferred to use existing verification procedures operated by agencies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Energy Department and the Commerce Department.

"We would have preferred to rely on these existing mechanisms as opposed to creating an additional end use verification procedure for India. We did not discuss creation of such a framework with the Indians during our discussions with them.

"The reason we have some concern about it is that the Indian government sees the creation of end use verification procedures as implying a lack of trust in them and so, naturally, they have some concerns about that," he said.

In his opening remarks before the panel, Rood said that while the US faces challenges from countries like Iran and North Korea, the Bush Administration has also sought to take advantage of opportunities in places like India to build a new strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy.

"The civil nuclear cooperation initiative is an important means of building this strategic partnership and also serves our nonproliferation goals by bringing India into the international nonproliferation mainstream," said Rood, who has served as President George W Bush' Special Assistant on counter proliferation since 2005.

"We look forward to Congress completing action on legislation to implement this initiative," he added.