Burns sends fresh reminder, asks India to seize opportunity

NEW DELHI: The US continued to maintain pressure on India to push the civilian nuclear deal forward by reiterating that it would be a “smart” move to get the 123 agreement back to US Congress by January.

US under secretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns, whose earlier remarks on a political timeline was called “an insult to Indian democracy” by the CPM, was quoted as saying to National Public Radio that the Bush administration hoped that the government wouldn’t reject it and thought of the deal as being postponed, not dead. Mr Burns also reiterated that the smart move would be to present the 123 agreement to the US Congress, which goes into election mode next year, by January.

“I think the reality is that an agreement like this, which has been controversial in our country but which has current Congressional support, it is smart to get it back to the Congress in a time when they will have the time to look at it and not to get it too deep into our election year,” he said. The presidential elections are to be held in November next year. “We don’t have forever. The reality of our politics is that Congress made a huge effort to pass the necessary law in the United States. We certainly don’t want to go too deep in 2008,” he said.

The US, which was taken by surprise by the political developments, has been telling the government that they will not get a better deal from any other administration. ``One message that the US is articulating very clearly to India was that this is an opportunity that doesn’t come around often. They ought to take that opportunity,” he said.

The UPA government, which is being criticised by the Left and pressured by the Bush administration, is yet to clearly state its position on the deal. As a result US has said that Washington will continue to work for getting the deal through at the different steps.

US ambassador to India David C Mulford has been meeting politicians and diplomats in a bid to understand the political realities and convey the Bush administration’s message on the deal. He met leader of the opposition L K Advani and has made innumerable trips to South Block to get the message across.

Mr Burns, who had also said earlier that it was time for the Indian government to take a decision and that time was running out, further said the US will react if India tests a nuclear weapon. “We have a clear obligation under the Atomic Energy Act to react if a country like India conducts a nuclear test. This President and any future president will always have that right under our law,” he said.

He added: “It would be up to the American president at the time, but we have been very clear with the Indians that we do not want them to conduct another nuclear test and there is no indication that they have plans to do that any time soon,” he said.

On the Left parties role in opposing the nuclear deal, Mr Burns said, “It is true that these particular parties have had a close relationship with the Chinese government for many decades. But India is a great democracy so we got to give Indian some more time to work out these problems.”