While opponents say a deal to open up US nuclear trade with India undermines international efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintains it should trigger an across-the-board improvement in US relations with the Asian giant.
Speaking to reporters aboard her plane, which stopped at Ramstein to refuel, Rice said on Friday it was not certain whether she would sign the agreement during her one-day visit to New Delhi because “there are a lot of administrative details left to be worked out.”
Legislation authorizing the controversial deal won final congressional approval on Wednesday. Rice said US President George W. Bush looks forward to signing the bill, but that is not a precondition for her discussions in India.
The agreement on civil nuclear cooperation allows US businesses to begin selling nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to India in exchange for safeguards and UN inspections at India’s civilian — but not military — nuclear plants.
Critics in India argue the constraints compromise their country’s right to conduct nuclear bomb tests.
Whether a signing ceremony is held or not, “I’m going to draw a line under this [deal] one way or another because it’s time to put the historic agreement — to say that that’s done and move on to what else we can do” to strengthen and broaden the relationship, she said.
The Bush administration considers the deal a crowning achievement of the president’s second term in office.
It could, however, turn out to be the last major diplomatic achievement of a presidency that is struggling in its final months on a number of other fronts, including a setback in relations with Russia after its invasion of Georgia and the prospect of a breakdown in a nuclear agreement with North Korea.
Rice said she spoke on Friday morning with the administration’s chief nuclear envoy to North Korea, Christopher Hill, who was in Pyongyang this week to try to persuade the North Koreans to resume dismantling their nuclear problem in exchange for energy aid. She said she and Hill did not discuss what progress he may have made; they intend to meet tomorrow in Washington.
In the onboard interview, Rice stressed that she saw the importance of her visit to New Delhi as focusing on the future, rather than celebrating the completion of the civil nuclear agreement.
“This is a relationship that has now a firm foundation to reach its full potential,” she said.
“It removes for India a barrier to full integration on a whole range of technologies,” and it opens the way for closer US-India cooperation in other areas such as defense, agriculture and education.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS