R Nicholas Burns: It is a deal that makes sense to US

OPINION

Question: In the Hyde Act, Congress made it very clear that if India were to test a nuclear weapon, the US co-operation with India should cease. If you are giving India assurances that there will be no interruption in its fuel supplies, regardless of what happens, how does that comply with the law? And why does that advance your efforts to try to persuade India not to test again?

And on the reprocessing issue, the President (Bush) has said enrichment and reprocessing is not necessary for a country to move forward with nuclear energy. Doesn't this repudiate that statement by him?

Burns: Two questions. Thank you. (Laughter). And I expect more.

First of all, we were very careful when we began these ""the latest phase of these negotiations to remind the Indian government that since the President and Prime Minister had their two agreements of July 2005 and March 2006, something else had happened: the Congress had debated over six-seven months those agreements and the Congress has passed the Hyde Act. And so we had to make sure that everything in this US-India civil nuclear agreement, the 123 Agreement, was completely consistent with the Hyde Act.

When we briefed Congress this week, we said we were confident that was the case. And it pertains to both of your questions.

On the issue of so-called right-of-return, of course, the American President under our Atomic Energy Act has the right to ask for the return of nuclear fuel and nuclear technologies if there is a test. That right-of-return has been, of course, preserved as it must be under our law, and there has been no change in how we understand the rights of the American President and the American government. It has been fully respected by this.

Now, in March 2006, when the President met with Prime Minister Singh in Delhi, he did "" President Bush offered four specific assurances to the Indian government that we wanted to help it try to achieve a continuity of fuel supply. And those assurances are built-in. The ones that we announced publicly in March 2006, are now built into the 123 Agreement. And they are very much consistent with the fact that we have a positive view of our future civil nuclear co-operation with India. We expect it to continue in a positive direction.

But, you know, when you write an agreement the way we have, and when you have legions of lawyers on both sides of the table, you also build in protection "" both sides do "" to meet your legal obligations. And so if there is ever any reason for the United States to have to invoke the right-of-return, we could certainly do so.

On the second question, on reprocessing consent rights, this was a major issue, in fact the principal major issue, in this last phase of negotiations over the last few months. The United States has committed in the past, in these 123 agreements, to confer reprocessing consent with Japan and with EURATOM.

We thought very hard about going down this road with the Indian government. We decided to for two reasons. First, in late May-early June, the Indians came to us and said that they were ready to build a new state-of-the-art reprocessing facility that would be under IAEA safeguards and that any reprocessing of spent fuel would be done in conjunction with that new facility, fully safeguarded, fully transparent to the IAEA and to the United States and to the international community. That was a significant development in the negotiations.

Second, Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act, of course, calls for subsequent arrangements in reprocessing, arrangements in procedures, that would need to be agreed upon before the reprocessing could actually take place. So, with the new facility promised by India under IAEA safeguards and with the subsequent arrangements and procedures, we believe it is a deal that makes sense to the United States.

(Excerpts from a briefing by US Under Secretary for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns on the status of the US-India civil nuclear co-operation initiative, on July 28)