The House International Relations Committee will in the later half of June decide whether to endorse or give conditional approval to the deal.
WASHINGTON: After poring over it for nine months, a powerful panel of the US House of Representatives will decide this month on a controversial civilian nuclear deal with India, a congressional staffer said on Thursday.
The House International Relations Committee will in the later half of June decide whether to endorse or give conditional approval to the deal, the staffer said on condition of anonymity.
The panel's findings would then be submitted to the full House for consideration. Committee chairman Henry Hyde, a Republican, "does have some concerns about the proposed civilian nuclear agreement and is studying ways to addressing those," said the staffer, suggesting the deal would receive only conditional approval.
Reports suggested this week that Hyde, whose support is critical, had decided to back the deal, first agreed upon in September and endorsed six months later by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Some legislators want to first have a look at a set of safeguards under which India and the United States would implement the deal.
The safeguards would be incorporated together with other technical details in another bilateral agreement, which the lawmakers also wanted to study before endorsing the deal.
The safeguards are being negotiated between India and the global atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) while moves to frame the bilateral agreement reportedly hit a snag after India refused to accept a provision barring it from conducting atomic tests.
The Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations, an influential think tank, said in a report released Thursday that Congress should adopt a two-stage approach -- "formally endorsing the deals basic framework, while delaying final approval until it is assured that critical nonproliferation needs are met."
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