India happy as US House sets timeframe for agreement

NEW DELHI: India has reasons to cheer about the outcome of the deliberations at the US House committee after it set strict procedures and time-frame for 123 Agreement —the bilateral agreement that guides the nuclear cooperation between the two countries — to be passed by the US Congress.

When the US was negotiating 123 agreement with the Chinese in the 1980s, the issue of passing it by the US Congress was left open-ended. As a result, it took the US and China over two years to get the 123 agreement passed by the US Congress. The US-China 123 Agreement negotiations started in 1981 and ended in 1984.

But after the negotiations, it did the rounds and the Congress conditionally approved it in December 1985. “We don’t want to get stuck like that,” said an official. The Indian establishment is happy that the bill passed by the House of Representatives lays down a strict procedure and time-frame for the agreement.

The bill requires the President to submit the 123 agreement to the Congress, after which it will be approved by a joint resolution that will be enacted into a law. The joint resolution has to be submitted in both houses of the Congress and to a committee.

The joint resolution of the two houses of the Congress has to be referred to a committee. The bill says that the committee to which the joint resolution is passed on has to decide on the bill within 60 days from the date of its introduction. The committee will be dissolved if it is unable to do so.

Even on the debate on the joint resolution, the bill says that that all motions and appeals should be limited to no more than six hours.

The president, meanwhile, has to consult and update the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate on the status of the negotiations between India and the US.

In the end, with China, it took almost 13 years between the time president Reagan put the agreement before the Congress in July 1985 and it was implemented during Clinton’s time in March 1998. President Clinton, on January 12, 1998, signed certifications to implement the agreement.

The Tiananmen crackdown on 1989 and Taiwan Straits crisis in 1995-96 ensured that the certification was delayed. In India’s case, there are no such factors.