Rice arrives in India for nuclear talks
Rice arrives in India for nuclear cooperation talks with India
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Saturday, 04, Oct 2008 11:01
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has arrived in India for talks on nuclear cooperation.
The US legislature has approved a nuclear deal allowing civilian nuclear technology to be shared with India and the global nuclear watchdog. The international atomic energy agency (IAEA), has also backed the deal paving the way for all suppliers of the radioactive nuclear materials to sell to India.
However, the top US diplomat, has spoken cautiously about speculation that the deal would be concluded during her visit to the country. Ms Rice said there were a lot of "administrative issues" that needed to be resolved as the bill was only approved by the Senate two days ago.
Speaking on board the plane travelling to New Delhi, she said: "This was only passed in our Congress two days ago. The President [George Bush] is looking forward to signing the bill, sometime, I hope, ...very soon, because we'll want to use it as an opportunity to thank all of the people who have been involved in this.
"That means the Indian American community, the US-India business community, and the diplomats and others who have been involved," she added.
Asked about her goals for the trip, Ms Rice said: "I'm going to draw a line under this one way or another, because it's time to put the historic agreement, say that that's done, and move on to what else we can do, because we've got a very broad relationship. But the whole purpose of this trip is to move forward, not to look at where we are."
Ms Rice remained non-committal on the issue of whether the bill would be signed during the visit, emphasising that the bill would not become law until it was formally approved by US president George Bush.
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh hailed the deal as removing "the constraints of technology denial" which had been put in place since India conducted a cold nuclear test in 1974.
Under the terms of the deal, India will become the only state to legally be supplied nuclear materials in spite of not signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.