Exemption for India will be 'consistent' with Hyde Act

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has said an agreement between India and the Nuclear Suppliers Group which will allow New Delhi to engage in nuclear trade will be supported by the US only if it is "consistent" with the Hyde Act.

"We will support nothing with India in the NSG that is in contradiction to the Hyde Act. It will have to be completely consistent with the obligations of the Hyde Act," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Panel.

Rice said if the Bush administration did not adhere to the Hyde Act -- which, according to opposition parties in India, takes away the country's nuclear sovereignty - US lawmakers will eventually refuse to pass the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal if and when it comes up in the Congress.

"We'll have to be consistent with the Hyde Act or I don't believe we can count on the Congress to make the next step," Rice said in response to a query from the Chairman of the panel, Howard Berman.

Berman said the Act, passed in 2006, "terminates US nuclear cooperation with India if New Delhi resumes nuclear testing", and also "restricts the transfer of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technologies".

"I'm concerned about the NSG. As I understand it, the US representative to that body has circulated a clean exemption for India that doesn't reflect any of the restrictions contained in the Hyde Act," Berman said.
   
"If that exemption were adopted by the NSG, we would essentially be creating two standards for nuclear trade for India, one for the US and one for the rest of the world," he said.