US Senator Joseph R Biden has praised the
passage of the historic
US-India nuclear cooperation legislation on Saturday.
Senator Biden, along with Senator Richard Lugar, is the original author of the bill, titled the Henry J Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006.
"This bill is a tremendous victory for US-India relations. It increases the prospect for stability and progress in South Asia and the rest of the world. It has become cliché to speak of the US-India relationship as a bond between the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy -- but this cliché is also a fact. Shared political values are the foundation for our relationship, a firm belief in the dignity of man and the consent of the governed," he said.
"Senator Lugar and I yield to no one in our commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. This legislation allows civil nuclear cooperation with India to proceed and it starts to bring India into the global nuclear non-proliferation system. We have taken great care, moreover, to protect the role of Congress and of the international institutions that enforce nuclear non-proliferation," he added.
"This legislation was the result of hard compromises -- compromises between our two countries, and between the executive and legislative branches of government in this country. The end result, however, was overwhelming bipartisan
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