WASHINGTON, April 20: The United States has said that it will not change its non-proliferation laws to let India retain the right to resume nuclear weapons testing.
“It's an issue that's covered by our law and ... in as much as it is affected by, it bumps up against US law, we're not going to change our laws," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said when asked about India's stance on nuclear testing.
A civilian nuclear energy deal the two countries are negotiating would prevent India from resuming nuclear tests. While India is willing to open some of its reactor for international inspection under the agreement signed last year, it is unwilling to give up the right to resume nuclear tests if and when it feels the need to do so.
“We have conveyed to the Indian government that there are certain issues that they might like to raise concerning issues that are covered by our national laws, and those are issues we're not going to go back and re-legislate," Mr McCormack said.
The Indo-US nuclear deal -- called the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006 -- is a bilateral pact under which the US will provide India access to civilian nuclear technology and nuclear fuel in exchange for IAEA safeguards on civilian Indian reactors.
The act was passed by an overwhelming 359-68 in the House of Representatives on July 26 and by 85-12 in the Senate on Nov 16 in a strong show of bipartisan support.
The act, however, retained the restrictions that would require the US administration to stop nuclear cooperation with India, if New Delhi resumes nuclear testing.
India wants Washington to remove this condition, which would require the US administration to send the nuclear deal back to Congress for re-legislation.
Initially, Washington had hailed the nuclear agreement as the beginning of a new strategic relationship between the United States and India. Soon after the congressional endorsement, the two countries began negotiating a 123 agreement, known so because of section 123 of a US law which requires Washington to seek certain guarantees before concluding a nuclear deal with another country.
The 123 negotiations, however, got into trouble when India refused to commit formally to its voluntary unilateral suspension on nuclear weapons testing and insisted to keep the right to reprocess nuclear fuel.