WASHINGTON - US SENATORS have voted to overturn a three-decade-old ban on atomic trade with India.
Nuclear deal's business potential
THE US Congress approved a landmark deal on Wednesday ending a three-decade ban on nuclear trade with India, unleashing billions of dollars of investment and drawing the world's second most populous country closer to the West.
These are key business and economic implications of the deal:
The Senate gave overwhelming final congressional approval on Wednesday to a landmark US-India nuclear cooperation accord and handed President George W. Bush a rare foreign policy victory.
The pact allows American 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.
The vote was 86-13.
It represents a major shift in US policy and now goes to Mr Bush for his signature.
The Bush administration portrays the pact as the cornerstone of new ties with a democratic Asian power.
The agreement, a key foreign policy initiative of President George W. Bush, was approved by the US House of Representatives at the weekend by a 298-117 vote.
The deal offers India access to Western technology and cheap atomic energy in return for New Delhi allowing UN inspections of some of its civilian nuclear facilities.
India has not signed the NPT, which is an international treaty dating from the 1960s that is intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Opponents warn that the deal could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia.
Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman, among those pushing for the amendment to end the deal if India carried out a nuclear test explosion, said the agreement would send a wrong signal to nuclear renegades Iran and North Korea.
It would also make India a 'de facto' nuclear weapons state without them having to sign the NPT. 'India gets to have their cake and eat it too,' he said.
'The agreement also makes it difficult for us to justify to other NPT signatories such as South Africa, Taiwan and Brazil which have postponed their own nuclear weapons programs as part of signing up for the NPT,' Mr Bingaman said.
Critics have said that Mr Bush is fast tracking the agreement through Congress to achieve a rare foreign policy success before he leaves office in January.
'President Bush and his aides were so eager for a foreign policy success that they didn't even try to get India to limit its weapons programme in return,' The New York Times said in an editorial on Tuesday.
'They got no promise from India to stop producing bomb-making material, no promise to expand its arsenal, and no promise not to resume nuclear testing,' it said. -- AFP, AP
