WASHINGTON, March 5: US lawmakers and arms-control experts have warned the Bush administration that its agreement to supply nuclear technology to India would undermine efforts to prevent the spread of atomic weapons.

In statements issued in Washington after President Bush signed the agreement in New Delhi on Thursday, the lawmakers cautioned that the accord would undercut the Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, and would make it harder to rein in suspected Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapon programmes.

Those who expressed doubts about the new accord included several senior lawmakers of President Bush’s Republican Party as well. One of them, Congressman Henry Hyde, who chairs the powerful House International Relations Committee, said the committee would give it a rigorous review.

“Implementing this agreement will require (US) legislative approval. It is the responsibility of this committee to thoroughly examine the specific provisions of the agreement and its potential consequences for US interests and those of the international community,” said Mr Hyde.

Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raised more than 80 questions about the Indo-US nuclear deal that he said needed to be answered for his committee to consider approval.

Both Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House International Relations Committee need to approve the deal before it goes to the full Senate and House for vote to become a legal document.

Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and co-sponsor of a bipartisan legislation that would block the deal, said it made a mockery of the cornerstone of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which India never signed.

The lawmakers point out that the agreement had already managed to salvage any future fast breeder reactors from the supervision, giving India the ability to classify future fast breeder reactors out of inspection. India already has two fast breeder reactors that could produce fuel for weapons.