WASHINGTON, March 10: The Bush administration has already submitted a proposal to the US Congress, seeking to amend the laws for enabling India to acquire nuclear technology from the United States while a senior State Department official said he was confident lawmakers will approve the move.

In a speech at Washington’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher said President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were “doing everything possible” to get congressional approval for the Indo-US nuclear deal.

“This is an issue which is not going to divide up on partisan lines. Both Houses understand that the new relationship with India is very, very important to the US,” he added.

Regarding apprehensions about the deal on Capitol Hill, Mr Boucher said the administration was ready to answer to objections raised by lawmakers.

Mr Boucher maintained that there was no time limit on getting the deal approved by the Congress but indicated that the process could begin next week.

Meanwhile, diplomatic sources in Washington told Dawn that the Bush administration had already submitted a proposal to Congress to change US law to allow the sale of nuclear technology to India.

The White House apparently wants the first of two needed legislative steps enacted by May. But experts say this will be difficult as the bill raises questions about an already complicated and controversial nuclear deal.

The nuclear agreement, which will end a three-decade-old ban on American civilian nuclear technology sales, needs to be first approved by the US Congress.

The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group will also have to alter its regulations so that foreign countries could supply to India.

Currently, India is barred under US and international law from acquiring foreign nuclear technology because it refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Earlier, in his first meeting with South Asian journalists as the head of his department, Mr Boucher urged Pakistan not to expect a similar deal from Washington, asserting that “Pakistan’s energy requirements and economic needs are different from those of India’s”.

Asked if Pakistan could also expect a similar arrangement with the US: “Now, in 10 years, 20 years or 50 years,” the State Department’s new chief for South and Central Asia said: “No, I don’t see anything like that on the cards for Pakistan.”

Mr Boucher said he does not expect the current confrontation between Afghanistan and Pakistan going out of control and instead he saw “a basic alignment of interests and opportunities” developing between the two countries.

Mr Boucher said US Central Command chief Gen John Abizaid who met President Gen Musharraf in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, days after a weekend visit by President Bush, had discussed the current tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan with the Pakistani leader.

“It’s a chance to talk to both of them about cooperation” in the war against terror, said Mr Boucher, recalling that Gen Abizaid visited Kabul after his meeting with President Gen Musharraf and “heard positive messages from both about their desire to cooperate”.

The State Department official said that the nuclear deal with India had already brought 19 per cent of India’s civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards. Once the agreement about the separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities was implemented, “65 per cent of India’s civilian reactors will be open for international inspection,” he said. “And ultimately it will expand to 90 per cent.”

Mr Boucher said that since the agreement did not cover the military side, he was not in a position to say how many military reactors in India would remain out of the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.