NEW YORK, Oct 2: Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that the US-India nuclear deal will lead to the lifting of technology restrictions and similar cooperation with several other countries.

“If India is to realise its economic potential, it will also need alternative sources of clean energy. Foremost among them is nuclear energy,” he said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Monday.

“The bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement that India and the US have finalised indicates the way forward, which should lead to the lifting of technology restrictions and the opening up of cooperation in this field with several countries,” he said with no reference to the storm the deal has run into back home.

Noting that the new challenges which were emerging, including protecting the electronically connected and inter-dependent world from terror and organised crime, were immensely complex, he said: “Handling this complexity requires much closer international cooperation than has been the case till now”.

India’s strategic partnership with the US, Mr Mukherjee said, had strengthened its relationship bilaterally, in the region and in the world making it clear that the development of closer relations between India and any one strategic partner will not be at the expense of relations with any third country.

Later addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Mr Mukherjee said UN reform agenda that emerged from the Outcome Document of the World Summit in 2005, would inevitably remain incomplete without comprehensive reform and expansion of the 15-member UN Security Council, and revitalisation of the General Assembly.

India which along with Japan, Brazil and Germany has been lobbying for a permanent Security Council seat is frustrated at the rejection of its claim by the international community.

He said: “Elements and ideas on the reform of the Security Council have been discussed for well over a decade, through numerous reports and interminable consultations.

“It is now time for inter-governmental negotiations to commence in order to make the Security Council more democratic, representative and responsive,” he said.