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U.S. and India Reach Agreement on Nuclear Cooperation
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By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: March 2, 2006
NEW DELHI, March 2 — President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India announced here today that they had reached agreement on putting into effect what Mr. Bush called a "historic" nuclear pact that would help India satisfy its enormous civilian energy needs while allowing it to continue to develop nuclear weapons.
At the same time, Mr. Bush said that he was going forward with a trip on Friday to Pakistan to meet with its president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, despite a bombing this morning outside a Marriott hotel and the United States Consulate in Karachi. The bombing, a suspected suicide attack, left four dead, including an American diplomat.
"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Mr. Bush said at a news conference with Mr. Singh. "My trip to Pakistan is an important trip. It's important to talk with President Musharraf about continuing our fight against terrorists. After all, he has had a direct stake in this fight — four times, the terrorists have tried to kill him."
Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, is about 1,000 miles north of Karachi, but security is expected to be extraordinarily tight during Mr. Bush's visit. The White House has not announced at what time or how he will arrive in the country. In 2000, President Bill Clinton arrived in Islamabad on an unmarked military plane.
American and Indian negotiators working all night in New Delhi reached agreement on implementing the nuclear deal at 10:30 a.m. today, only two hours before Mr. Bush and Mr. Singh announced it — after the United States accepted an Indian plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities. Under the initial nuclear agreement that both countries announced in Washington in July 2005, India would be allowed to buy nuclear fuel and reactor components from the United States and other countries as long as it worked out a separation plan.
In the plan announced today, India agreed to permanently classify 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors as civilian facilities, meaning those reactors will be subject for the first time to international inspections, or safeguards.
The other reactors, as well as a prototype fast-breeder reactor in the early stages of development, will remain as military facilities, and not be subject to inspections. India also retained the right to develop future fast-breeder reactors for its military program, a provision that critics of the deal called stunning. In addition, India said it was guaranteed a permanent supply of nuclear fuel.
The separation plan, according to a senior Indian official, also envisions India-specific rules from the International Atomic Energy Agency, effectively recognizing India as a nuclear weapons state in "a category of its own."
Both sides appeared eager to announce the implementation agreement as the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's first visit to India, and did so with few details at a triumphal news conference on the lush grounds of Hyderabad House, a former princely residence in the heart of the capital. But Mr. Bush acknowledged that the deal now faces a difficult battle for approval and a change in American law by Congress.
"We concluded an historic agreement today on nuclear power," Mr. Bush said, with Mr. Singh at his side. "It's not an easy job for the prime minister to achieve this agreement, I understand. It's not easy for the American president to achieve this agreement. But it's a necessary agreement. It's one that will help both our peoples."
Mr. Bush added, speaking of Congress, "Some people just don't want to change and change with the times. But this agreement is in our interest."
Indians hailed the agreement as historic and highly advantageous for the country.
"It offers access to civilian nuclear energy, it protects your strategic program and it mainstreams India," said Amitabh Mattoo, vice chancellor of Jammu University and a member of the Prime Minister's Task Force on Global Strategic Development. "India couldn't have hoped for a better deal."
In the United States, Democratic and Republican opponents of the deal as well as some nuclear experts said that India's willingness to subject some of its nuclear program to inspections was meaningless when the country has a military nuclear program right alongside it. Critics also said that keeping the fast-breeder reactors under military control, without inspections, would allow India to develop far more nuclear arms, and more quickly, than it has in the past. Fast-breeder reactors are highly efficient producers of the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons.
"It's not meaningful to talk about 14 of the 22 reactors being placed under safeguards," said Robert J. Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who served as a top nonproliferation official in the Clinton administration and the early days of the Bush administration. "What's meaningful is what the Indians can do at the un-safeguarded reactors, which vastly increase their production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. One has to assume that the administration was so interested in concluding a deal that it was prepared to cave in to the demands of the Indian nuclear establishment."
Critics of the deal also said it would now be more difficult for the United States to persuade Iran and other nations to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions.
"It will set a precedent that Iran will use to argue that the United States has a double standard," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, a leading opponent of the deal. "You can't break the rules and expect Iran to play by them, and that's what President Bush is doing today."
Administration officials in New Delhi countered that India is a responsible nuclear power and has earned the right to the nuclear energy technology that it urgently needs for a booming economy and its population of one billion.
"India is unique," R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, told reporters at a briefing in New Delhi. Mr. Burns, the administration's point man in the nuclear talks, added: "It has developed its entire nuclear program over 30 years alone because it had been isolated. So the question we faced was the following: Is it better to maintain India in isolation, or is it better to try to bring it into the international mainstream? And President Bush felt the latter."
The deal was praised by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"This agreement is an important step towards satisfying India's growing need for energy, including nuclear technology and fuel, as an engine for development.," Mr. ElBaradei said in a statement. "It would also bring India closer as an important partner in the nonproliferation regime."
President Jacques Chirac of France also offered his blessings late today, calling India "a responsible power" and saying that access to civilian nuclear energy would help India "respond to its immense energy needs while limiting its emissions of greenhouse gases," Agence France-Presse reported.
At the news conference, Mr. Bush and Mr. Singh announced additional cooperative agreements on counterterrorism, fighting AIDS in India, and trade, including the importing to the United States of Indian mangoes, considered by connoisseurs to be among the best in the world.
"And oh, by the way, Mr. Prime Minister, the United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangoes," Mr. Bush said at the news conference.
Article Tools Sponsored By
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: March 2, 2006
NEW DELHI, March 2 — President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India announced here today that they had reached agreement on putting into effect what Mr. Bush called a "historic" nuclear pact that would help India satisfy its enormous civilian energy needs while allowing it to continue to develop nuclear weapons.
At the same time, Mr. Bush said that he was going forward with a trip on Friday to Pakistan to meet with its president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, despite a bombing this morning outside a Marriott hotel and the United States Consulate in Karachi. The bombing, a suspected suicide attack, left four dead, including an American diplomat.
"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Mr. Bush said at a news conference with Mr. Singh. "My trip to Pakistan is an important trip. It's important to talk with President Musharraf about continuing our fight against terrorists. After all, he has had a direct stake in this fight — four times, the terrorists have tried to kill him."
Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, is about 1,000 miles north of Karachi, but security is expected to be extraordinarily tight during Mr. Bush's visit. The White House has not announced at what time or how he will arrive in the country. In 2000, President Bill Clinton arrived in Islamabad on an unmarked military plane.
American and Indian negotiators working all night in New Delhi reached agreement on implementing the nuclear deal at 10:30 a.m. today, only two hours before Mr. Bush and Mr. Singh announced it — after the United States accepted an Indian plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities. Under the initial nuclear agreement that both countries announced in Washington in July 2005, India would be allowed to buy nuclear fuel and reactor components from the United States and other countries as long as it worked out a separation plan.
In the plan announced today, India agreed to permanently classify 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors as civilian facilities, meaning those reactors will be subject for the first time to international inspections, or safeguards.
The other reactors, as well as a prototype fast-breeder reactor in the early stages of development, will remain as military facilities, and not be subject to inspections. India also retained the right to develop future fast-breeder reactors for its military program, a provision that critics of the deal called stunning. In addition, India said it was guaranteed a permanent supply of nuclear fuel.
The separation plan, according to a senior Indian official, also envisions India-specific rules from the International Atomic Energy Agency, effectively recognizing India as a nuclear weapons state in "a category of its own."
Both sides appeared eager to announce the implementation agreement as the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's first visit to India, and did so with few details at a triumphal news conference on the lush grounds of Hyderabad House, a former princely residence in the heart of the capital. But Mr. Bush acknowledged that the deal now faces a difficult battle for approval and a change in American law by Congress.
"We concluded an historic agreement today on nuclear power," Mr. Bush said, with Mr. Singh at his side. "It's not an easy job for the prime minister to achieve this agreement, I understand. It's not easy for the American president to achieve this agreement. But it's a necessary agreement. It's one that will help both our peoples."
Mr. Bush added, speaking of Congress, "Some people just don't want to change and change with the times. But this agreement is in our interest."
Indians hailed the agreement as historic and highly advantageous for the country.
"It offers access to civilian nuclear energy, it protects your strategic program and it mainstreams India," said Amitabh Mattoo, vice chancellor of Jammu University and a member of the Prime Minister's Task Force on Global Strategic Development. "India couldn't have hoped for a better deal."
In the United States, Democratic and Republican opponents of the deal as well as some nuclear experts said that India's willingness to subject some of its nuclear program to inspections was meaningless when the country has a military nuclear program right alongside it. Critics also said that keeping the fast-breeder reactors under military control, without inspections, would allow India to develop far more nuclear arms, and more quickly, than it has in the past. Fast-breeder reactors are highly efficient producers of the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons.
"It's not meaningful to talk about 14 of the 22 reactors being placed under safeguards," said Robert J. Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who served as a top nonproliferation official in the Clinton administration and the early days of the Bush administration. "What's meaningful is what the Indians can do at the un-safeguarded reactors, which vastly increase their production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. One has to assume that the administration was so interested in concluding a deal that it was prepared to cave in to the demands of the Indian nuclear establishment."
Critics of the deal also said it would now be more difficult for the United States to persuade Iran and other nations to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions.
"It will set a precedent that Iran will use to argue that the United States has a double standard," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, a leading opponent of the deal. "You can't break the rules and expect Iran to play by them, and that's what President Bush is doing today."
Administration officials in New Delhi countered that India is a responsible nuclear power and has earned the right to the nuclear energy technology that it urgently needs for a booming economy and its population of one billion.
"India is unique," R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, told reporters at a briefing in New Delhi. Mr. Burns, the administration's point man in the nuclear talks, added: "It has developed its entire nuclear program over 30 years alone because it had been isolated. So the question we faced was the following: Is it better to maintain India in isolation, or is it better to try to bring it into the international mainstream? And President Bush felt the latter."
The deal was praised by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"This agreement is an important step towards satisfying India's growing need for energy, including nuclear technology and fuel, as an engine for development.," Mr. ElBaradei said in a statement. "It would also bring India closer as an important partner in the nonproliferation regime."
President Jacques Chirac of France also offered his blessings late today, calling India "a responsible power" and saying that access to civilian nuclear energy would help India "respond to its immense energy needs while limiting its emissions of greenhouse gases," Agence France-Presse reported.
At the news conference, Mr. Bush and Mr. Singh announced additional cooperative agreements on counterterrorism, fighting AIDS in India, and trade, including the importing to the United States of Indian mangoes, considered by connoisseurs to be among the best in the world.
"And oh, by the way, Mr. Prime Minister, the United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangoes," Mr. Bush said at the news conference.
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