US Congress: Amendments in nuclear deal bill to focus on FMCT

One version will have language demanding that the President certify that India is not “increasing its production of fissile material.” It is not clear whether this means stopping production of material or avoiding acceleration of nuclear material production.

Another is to call on the Administration to encourage India, Pakistan and China to work for a regional moratorium on fissile material production. Although they seem to fall short of the earlier proposals for an immediate ban on India’s production of nuclear material, these demands will not be acceptable to either the Bush Administration or the Indian government.

From the very moment the Indo-US nuclear deal was announced last July, non-proliferation activists here had sought to link Congressional approval of the deal with an Indian moratorium on fissile material production.

While India has already committed itself to join a multilateral fissile materials cut-off treaty and the Bush Administration has unveiled an initiative on Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) in Geneva last month, the opponents of the deal remain to be propitiated.

Taking no chances, senior officials of the Administration are working closely with the staff of the ranking members of the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to keep the marked up legislation within the four corners of the nuclear agreements reached between the two countries.

These are the agreement on July 18, 2005 that outlined the framework for bilateral nuclear cooperation and the March 2, 2006 agreement on the separation of Indian nuclear facilities. The strategy of the Administration on the Capitol Hill has been to ensure that the operative parts of the Bill remain intact, while encouraging the Congress to state its broader non-proliferation concerns, including those on FMCT, in a non-binding manner.

Flexibility on the non-binding sections of the bill is considered crucial to winning the widest possible support in the Congress for nuclear cooperation with India by addressing the concerns of different sections of the political spectrum.

If the champions of FMCT insist on bringing their provision into the operative parts of the bill, the Administration is confident that it has enough votes to defeat unacceptable amendments in the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week.

While the amendments relating to the FMCT might not find approval in the Congressional committees this week, some new provisions on the terms of termination of the nuclear cooperation agreement might be incorporated into the legislation.

Under the bill submitted by the Administration, bilateral nuclear cooperation will come to a halt if the President determined that India conducted a test after the approval of the new legislation in the Congress. The Congress is now expected to add two other conditions under which nuclear cooperation could be terminated. These are determinations by the US President that India has either abrogated the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency or is found in material breach of the agreement. These conditions reflect the practical political realities on the ground and do not in any way modify the essence of the Indo-US nuclear deal.