We will stand up for the deal we negotiated: Burns

The Bush administration has acknowledged that it is not happy with the enabling legislation approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month to facilitate the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, and hopes that the final version to emerge from conference after a House and Senate floor vote would be more akin to the House International Relations Committee legislation that was adopted by a vote of 37-5.

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told rediff.com after addressing the 10th anniversary of the Indian American Friendship Council on Capitol Hill: "I spent Thursday in Paris meeting Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and we spent five hours going through the House bill and the Senate bill, and both India and the US much prefer the House version."

The event coincided with the one year anniversary of the Indo-US Joint Statement announced by President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter's visit to Washington last year

"Our position is that the House has done a great job -- we support the bill -- but in the Senate bill, there are just a couple of amendments that we would hope might be transformed in the conference because we made a commitment to the government of India that we would stand up for the deal that we have negotiated," Burns said.

The House bill is expected to be debated and voted on the floor next week, while the Senate bill is not expected to be taken up till after the summer recess.

However, Burns quickly noted, "Though we respect the right and obligation of the Congress to put its own views forward, we would hope there are no amendments that would cut across the commitments that we made in the bill. But this is part of the democratic process. We have a separation of powers and it is up to the Congress to pass the legislation and I think we are going to get two good bills from the House and the Senate."

Burns denied that India's concerns over the Senate version were slowing the nailing down of the Indo-US bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. "A strong vote in the House next week will create the momentum for an equally strong vote in the Senate, and if you look at the votes in the Committees they were very strong," he predicted.

When informed that Senator Richard Lugar had told rediff.com that it was highly unlikely that the Senate would schedule a floor debate and vote before the summer recess, Burns replied: "Well, obviously, the Senate has to set its own calendar. But it is our strong hope that the Senate will turn to this after the House votes before the recess because this is a very important deal that we want to put forward as soon as we can and transform this relationship for the better."

Congressman Ed Royce, California Republican and former GOP co-chair of the India Caucus, who is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee, told rediff.com: "We are very positive. The vote count looks good for the floor vote in the House."

"You saw the strong vote coming out of Committee and how we handled the amendments," he noted, predicting, "The vote is going to be even stronger on the House floor and I think that is going to drive the momentum for the arrangement and at this point, we are very positive about the direction of this debate in the US and the Congress."

Earlier, over 100 lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, and all members of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans expressed unequivocal and unambiguous support for the deal and for the strengthening of the US-India strategic partnership, and showered kudos on the Indian American community for making sure the legislation in both the House and Senate Committees were approved overwhelmingly.

But several of them cautioned: "We are not there yet. We have still to vote on it next week, and we want everyone to spend your time today, tomorrow and over the next week, contacting members of Congress, to make sure that they support it, because that is the only way this is going to happen."

Congressman Gary Ackerman, Democratic co-chair of the India Caucus declared, "We are on the verge of a tremendous policy breakthrough that will forever change the direction of the US-India relationship." But he exhorted, "The message to you is, do not be complacent. Do not take anything for granted. That victory will be our joint victory made possible by each and every one of you. Keep the wind in our sail next week."