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US Endorses India's Nuclear Energy Goals - Indian Agency

Posted on: Friday, 6 January 2006, 06:00 CST

Text of report by Sridhar Krishnaswami; carried by Indian news agency PTI; all ellipses as received

Washington, 6 January: In a strong endorsement of India's quest to acquire technology and equipment to generate atomic power, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that it will have to have civilian nuclear energy and not be dependent on countries posing concerns.

She also rejected the notion that US was adopting double standards on the nuclear issue, that democracies like India and Israel could have it and others like Iran or North Korea could not.

At an interactive session at the State Department Correspondents Meeting on Thursday, Rice said US couldn't have it both ways - telling carbon-dependent countries like India not to engage in energy relations with a nation like Iran and at the same time withholding from New Delhi access to civilian nuclear energy.

"We can't say to the Indians on the one hand, you can't - we'd rather you weren't engaged in energy relations with, for instance, Iran, but by the way, civil nuclear is closed off to you," she remarked.

"We have to recognise that India is a big and important and growing economy. It will have to access civil nuclear energy if it's not to be totally dependent on carbon and if it is not to be dependent on carbon relationships with countries that we've had concerns about," Rice said.

"We've been very clear that while we want India very much to have access to civil nuclear technology, we also want to do this in a way that strengthens non-proliferation. And so, that's why the arrangement is designed as it should... The negotiations are ongoing," she said in response to a question.

"The prospect that you could have civil nuclear energy in India is one that is welcomed not just by the US but by the other countries of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group," she said.

"And I just want to underscore, a lot of non-proliferation people, including the head of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] himself, thinks it's a very good idea that we work in this direction. But the specifics of how we get there are still being worked," Rice added.

She rejected the perception that the US was adopting double standards on the nuclear issue and that democracies like India and Israel could have it and others like Iran or North Korea could not, saying Washington does not worry about certain nations because they have demonstrated no desire for nuclear weapons while there are others who cheat on their obligations.

"We worry not at all about civil nuclear power in those countries because they have demonstrated no desire towards nuclear weapons... The worst cases are people who are under IAEA safeguards, under NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] obligations, and then they cheat on those obligations... And we have a couple of cases of those we're working right now - North Korea and Iran," she added.

Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia

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