India, U.S. reach landmark nuclear agreement

Bush and Singh announced new bilateral cooperation on issues from investment, trade and health to agriculture, the environment and even mangoes. Bush agreed to resume imports of the juicy, large-pitted fruit after a 17-year ban.

The president ended the day at a state dinner with Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam under a crescent moon in a lush courtyard of the presidential palace.

Sealing the deal with mango juice
Waiters in red tunics and red-and-white turbans scurried to serve broccoli-almond soup, seafood and peach ice cream after toasts of mango juice by the two heads of state.

The nuclear agreement drew fire from congressional critics.

“With one simple move the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the entire world has been playing by, and broken his own word to assure that we will not ship nuclear technology to India without the proper safeguards,” said Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In New York, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended the deal. “India and Pakistan had never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore, they weren’t in violation of it by having nuclear programs,” he said.

Bush said helping India with nuclear power would reduce the global demand for energy which has sent gasoline prices soaring.

“To the extent that we can reduce demand for fossil fuels, it will help the American consumer,” Bush said.

It also could be a boon for American companies that have been barred from selling reactors and material to India.

Critics have complained the deal rewards bad behavior and undermines efforts to prevent states like Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. The White House said India was unique because it had protected its nuclear technology and not been a proliferator.

Administration rebuts critics
The administration also argued it was a good deal because it would provide international oversight for a program that has been secret since India entered the nuclear age in 1974.

“In its largest sense, in the geopolitical sense, the agreement today removes a basic irritant in the relations between India and the United States over the last 30 years,” said Nick Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs.”

The agreement has no impact on India’s nuclear weapons program. “It’s not a perfect deal in the sense that we haven’t captured 100 percent of India’s nuclear program,” Burns acknowledged.

The agreement grew out of an accord Bush and Singh signed last July to establish a new relationship in civil nuclear energy.

The United States and other countries slapped sanctions on India and Pakistan after they conducted nuclear weapons tests 1998 but those penalties were lifted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States sought allies against al-Qaida.

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